Do you need another reason to avoid Air France?

There are some flights that go exceedingly smoothly: the ying. I boarded my flight from Colombo to Doha to Amman with no hiccups. I saw the sun rise over the impending chaos of Colombo as I sat on my scarf to protect my jeans from the dampness of the taxi seat, as if it had been washed carefully but had never quite dried in the intense humidity. Skinny men in colorful wrapped skirts stepped lightly along the sides of the road, men whose arm veins I could see from the car, so little fat did they have. Young girls in blue and white school uniforms that looked all shades of gray in the morning light, darted between the traffic like it was a game, a real life pacman, and their long black braids swung back and forth. It smelled like rain, heat, gasoline, rain, heat, fish, mangoes.

The new Colombo terminal boasts a Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf, shiny and new, and the mocha-colored cushions and smooth wood and wicker feel very colonial when you sip your cappuccino from a thick white mug while looking out over the South Asian jungle. I tell the barista that even in DC we don’t have a Coffee Bean yet, and why on earth did Sri Lanka, arguably the Tea Capitol of the World, get one before we did? He shrugged and handed me my debit card. I bought souvenir tea from delightful young women whose skin was the color of the tea they were selling, and they explained with the trademark South Asian head bob the difference between the types of tea: U.V.A., Kandy, Ruthuna, this one comes from the south, this one from the mountains...this one is light, this one is dark, this one is a little stronger, and this is a very nice assortment...

The connection to Doha, with its high ceilings and sparkling duty free, and then to Amman, was seamless. My suitcase was the first one out, and I was picked up right away. It was a lovely Jordan afternoon, and the landscape rolled away from the highway in amber waves with golden froth of the sun sparkling on the windows of the distant houses. That strangely fresh smell of soil, desert and diesel whipped around our heads as we sped across the plain.

And then the yang, a week later. I arrived at 1 AM for my Air France flight to DC via Paris. In the Amman airport, there are a variety of men milling about in blue jumpsuits, and they will help you (often whether you like it or not); one of them informed me that the Air France counter had already closed. So I rushed through, and yes, it was closed, leaving me and a bunch of French guys stranded, asking anyone who looked like they knew anything, How can we get on the Air France flight...? WHY DID THEY CLOSE THE COUNTER? The French guys yelled at the only man who looked like he had any control, who insisted repeatedly, “SHU MALAK, I don’t have any idea about Air France, I’m with Royal Jordanian! I have no idea! Get a hotel!” He muttered angry Arabic and sucked his cigarette. The French guys yelled some more, then gradually disappeared, presumably to get a hotel.

Luckily, I have a travel agent, and they have a 24-hour emergency number, and Vita, who is my favorite person right now, confirmed me on the Frankfurt flight leaving in an hour and a half, although the man in the blue jumpsuit tilted his head in a tick of disbelief and raised his eyebrows as he inhaled, “It’s overbooked maybe 30 person.” I pointed at the Blackberry pressed against my ear and whispered, “Si7r...” Magic.

Although I was confirmed on the flight, which was indeed magical, this was only the first hurdle: the Lufthansa computer system was down, resulting in a crowd at the counter that had been growing for thirty minutes. As departure time approached, they announced that there would be free seating for those who did not already have their boarding pass. This was good news for me because, well, first come, first serve, so I paid for my ticket with my own credit card because my government card’s limit is low, low, and I got a blank boarding pass with FREE scribbled on it.

Being on a flight with free seating means a mob at the counter and then the same mob at the gate, random blue jumpsuited men who take you to the WRONG TERMINAL, and also only being able to check your bag one leg, which in turn means picking up the bag, then entering the airport again to find the correct terminal, which may involve a variety of stunts, like climbing up a down escalator because I had gone into the wrong baggage claim. This, my friends, is much harder than it looks, and not as much fun.

But not as hard as the young Palestinian woman next to me in the airplane from Amman, who had never flown before and was wide-eyed, overwhelmed. She and her shy three year old son Hamza, dressed impeccably in a tiny black three-piece suit, were en route to Sweden. She didn’t speak a word of English. I knew I had a while to wait in Frankfurt, so I told her to follow me, and we’d find her plane together. Frankfurt airport is a maze of hallways, checks, arrival and departure computer screens, passport controls, German women in navy suits who speak quickly and unforgivingly. My baggage claim and her gate were in the same place, roughly, which was good, because it was completely confusing to figure out which Lufthansa counter she needed to find to get her boarding pass, and how exactly she was to get to her gate--and I am a veteran traveler who speaks English. I saw her off at the security gate and watched her glide into the crowd, Hamza trotting dutifully behind her in his tiny blazer, four steps to her one.

I wouldn’t have had the chance to help her on her maiden voyage if I had made the Air France flight, and I don’t know why things happen the way they do, but sometimes your inconvenience doesn’t matter in the long run after all, and sometimes you get a glimpse into someone else’s life that makes you think deep thoughts about destiny and chance while you wait with your laptop and German gummy bears at Gate 55.