airport lounges & waits

Had to take the early shuttle to get a free ride back to the airport this morning so ended up being early - AGAIN. I have been early enough to almost every airport on this trip so that I am waiting for the check in counter to open. My husband would love to just show up an hour ahead of time and then stroll through the business check in and to the gate. Nowadays, that's just about impossible to do in just an hour. Some places are saying you need to be at the airport 3 hours ahead of your flight now but whenever I have followed that advice, the counter isn't open yet. Usually the airlines can get you checked in quickly but sometimes the security and passport lines are ridiculously long. Thus, I end up spending a lot of time at airports doing nothing but sitting or standing around and waiting for someone to come, something to open, some line to move.
My first flight was from Indianapolis to Chicago, either at age 5 or 7, don't remember which, but it was a big deal and the whole family and friends walked down to the gate, waved madly to see us off and then it was a repeat when we returned. Those days you could hardly walk into the terminal through the hordes of people waiting to greet returning passengers. Now this line has been moved to the baggage claim exit . Likewise friends seeing other people leave line up at the "passengers only beyond this point" site so that you have to struggle through that mess of people to get to the bored "checker of documents". Back then you got to the airport maybe 1/2 hour before you had to get on the plane, never worried that your bag would not arrive at the same destination or the same time as you, and didn't need to check your pockets for matches, lighters, pocket knives, bottles of water or whatever. It is really sad and unfortunate that those days are long behind us.
I'm through almost half of my flights and with the exception of the flights within Australia and to and from Fiji, the rest of my flights are business class. Yippee. I so do love business class. At the moment, I'm in the lounge and I don't have to find a plug, don't have to hope that I can get internet access without it costing me a 24 hour fee which I'll never use, and I can have drinks and snacks while I work. How great is that. Today I fly Qatar Airways but in Istanbul they don't have their own lounge so I am in the British Airways lounge. Oddly enough, I am the only one in here besides the desk attendant. I don't think I have ever been alone in a lounge before and they don't have the best of food here either. that's a disappointment but I have managed to find enough for a nice breakfast and a couple of snacks to take along.
My luggage has grown to almost 24 kilograms so it's nice to be business. Somewhere in Australia, I will have to mail some of that stuff home. So now I am just kicking back, relaxing, and enjoying the solitude and ambience. Write you from Qatar.