Red Underwear and Limoncello

Last Saturday morning at 6:15 a.m., I got a call from Claire-Adele: "I'm in Rome."

Claire-Adele was supposed to be in Bangkok this week visiting her father's family. She was scheduled to fly from New York through Qatar last Friday. The plane from NYC took off as scheduled. While she was flying, the airspace in the Middle East closed. After eleven hours in the air, the plane landed in Italy. She was even wearing her lucky red underwear, a good luck charm for safe traveling.

According to the Wall Street Journal, 264 flights were in the air on the way to the Middle East when the airspace was closed. The same article said that 10% of global air traffic goes through the Middle East. It is a major hub for flights between Europe, Asia and Africa. I guess that is why it is called the "Middle" East. 

At first when Claire-Adele told me she was wearing her lucky travel underwear, I thought "Well that didn't work." It is the opposite of good luck when your connecting flight gets diverted because of a war. 

But then, it probably was good luck. She is lucky that she wasn't waiting in the Qatar airport for her flight to Bangkok when the airspace closed. She could have been stuck on the edges of a war zone for weeks. 

Qatar airlines didn't have any information about new flights, so Claire-Adele decided to hunker down in Italy for a week, which of course is an awesome Plan B. When life gives you lemons, make limoncello.