Preface: after the difficult year we've been through, my parents and I decided to go on a vacation. We hadn't been on a vacation for a long time. We wanted to build some new memories, good memories, and we all wanted to go to Italy. This is the story, transcribed from my longhand travel journal.

Logan Airport in Boston is the first airport in the country to be fully staffed by the new federal Transportation Security Administration. They look pretty spiffy in their uniforms, if not exactly intimidating. I walk through the metal detector without a blip, but the x-ray machine stops on my backpack. Traffic backs up and spills over to the lane next to us as TSA employees (agents?) peer at the backpack. Finally, the bag is pulled out, and I am taken to a long table off to the side by a TSA guy in blue latex gloves to have the bag searched by hand.

I stand patiently while Blue Gloves unpacks the backpack. It's a big pack, and I have a lot of stuff in it. He goes through everything carefully and presses on the bag when it's empty. He's clearly searching for something in particular, but I don't ask.

He takes the backpack back to the x-ray, and they peer at it for a while longer. Then he comes back and roots through my stuff again. Finally, he picks up my keys. Attached to the keyring is a small steel carabiner, not meant for climbing. When pushed open, it does make something of a sharp point, though the point is inside the frame of the 'biner and not much of a weapon. But apparently they've found what they're looking for.

Blue Gloves takes the keys back to the guys at the x-ray machine. They confer. I wait. Finally, he comes back, returns the keys, and leaves me to repack the backpack. I feel much safer.

I wait interminably for my flight to board. The plane is late arriving, all seats in the boarding area are full, I sit on the floor and shift uncomfortably. As Air France begins to board, lots of stiff, cranky passengers crowd the gate area. An Air France crew member gets on the PA and tells us in broken English that everything will go much faster if it is orderly and would everyone in the gate area please go away, which cracks us up.

As I board, I notice that the paint on the nose of the plane is badly gouged and that the aisles are narrower than anything I've seen before. I wonder idly if the plane is a hand-me-down from Aeroflot. I try not to worry.

We are almost an hour behind by the time we push back from the gate and take our place in line on the runways. The captain gets on the intercom to tell us that we won't be late coming in to Paris because of a strong tailwind. I don't fully understand the ramifications of his words until later, but I call them as bullshit right away.

At some point during the flight, I weave my way to the bathrooms at the back of the plane. One of them appears to be vacant. I pull on the handle, then push it to the side, but can't open the door. Just in time to see me looking confused and stupid, a flight attendant slips by. He stops, puts out a hand, and pushes straight in on the door. It folds inward easily. "Pousser is push," he tells me, smiling. Of course. Who said travel isn't educational?

I sleep the rest of the way to Paris, then wake up, reset my watch, and realize I'm going to miss my connecting flight to Florence. I'm supposed to meet my parents and take that flight with them. Tailwind, my ass. The gate better be easy to find.

But, of course, it isn't. And the moment I step off the plane, every Air France employee disappears as if by magic. Not only is the gate not easy to find, it's in a different terminal. I sprint to the other side of the airport and track down the gate from which my Florence flight has left, but there's no one there either. I am alone in Paris with a handful of Euros and no way to contact my parents.

Finally, I find an Air France "transfer desk." Not knowing or caring what a transfer desk is, I unload my situation onto a dour Air France clerk. She confers with her fellow desk jockeys and tells me that she is sorry, but there is no other flight to Florence today. I point out that I only missed my flight because Air France was late, so she should start coming up with options to get me to Florence. She hates me. We don't need a translator for that.

As time goes by, more and more people from the Boston flight drift up to the transfer desk, and it starts to become clear that this is not a case of one or two people missing connections, but of twenty or so people missing the same connection. Now no one behind the desk likes us. I don't care.

The solution they find is to fly us all to Bologna, then take us by bus to Florence. I am not making this up. We go to the gate to wait for the flight to Bologna.

The plane to Bologna is small, a ninety-seat commuter jet. My seat is literally in the back of the plane, last row next to the window. We squeeze in and wait. The captain gets on the mike to tell us that they're completing some minor mechanical repairs (huh?) and we should please be comfortable for ten or fifteen minutes longer. We grumble, and we wait.

After forty minutes or so, the captain gets back on the mike and gives us bad news in a flurry of French. The groans and shouts of protest around me tell me all I need to know even before the captain repeats the announcement in English. Whatever is wrong with the plane cannot be fixed in a short time; we have to get off.

I can't believe they loaded us onto a plane with such grave mechanical problems in the first place. As we wait to get off the plane, a flight attendant speaks to me in Irish-accented English: "This is wrong, you know. You should complain. Loudly. And we never had this conversation."

They load us onto another little jet. I fall asleep immediately and wake up in Bologna. I am aware that I have forgotten the name of the hotel where we are staying in Florence and do not have my Palm Pilot with me. I am also aware that I don't have the number of the cell phone my father rented. I try to call my parents' house in DC to leave a message, knowing they will check the machine, but Telecom Italia hates my Visa card. I am not sure what will happen, how this will work out, but I get on the bus anyway.

As I'm walking to the bus, the mother of an American family of four who started on the same Boston flight takes my suitcase and rolls it herself. "You know," she says confidentially, "You can cry if you want to. I probably would be by now."

The drive to Florence is fun. At least we're going to Florence. One of the Boston flight refugees, a sweet blond girl from an Eastern college, curls up and is instantly asleep. I dig out my walkman and put on 10,000 Maniacs. Before the light goes completely, we pass villages and vineyards and fantastic sunset views.

Bologna to Florence is a mountain drive. We pass through a number of tunnels bored straight through rock. I think about what I've been told about the differences between the Italian and French approaches to mountains: that the French wrap their roads around their mountains and the Italians smash right through theirs.

On the outskirts of Florence, I see a number of gas stations called AGIP, with eight-legged dogs as a logo. I never get an explanation for this.

I am finally dropped at the tiny Florence airport, where no one is waiting for me. My head is pounding. I've been up for well over 24 hours. I find the bar and get a bottle of water -- sin gas, I learn, a phrase I will repeat endlessly -- and some crackers. I take some Tylenol and think over my situation.

Then I go through every single scrap of paper in my possession. Every Euro note, every flight coupon, every itinerary. And then I find it: a quick note from my father mentioning our hotel. Eureka! Saved!

I hustle outside to the arrivals terminal, where a couple of taxis are waiting. The driver of the car first in line is standing outside, smoking a cigarette. I thank myself for learning basic Italian and say, "Mi scusi, parla inglese?" He nods. My savior. I climb in, and he hurtles me through town, chuckling at my reaction to the Duomo ("Holy shit"). I pay off my driver, I give my passport to the man at the front desk, I give some Euros to the bellman for bringing up my suitcase, I collapse on my parents' bed.

And before I can run out of steam completely, they take me out to dinner in an eight-table trattoria where no one speaks much English and the food is divine. That night, I sleep like the dead, and wake up smiling: I'm in Florence.