The layover that changed a life: the city you saw once on a roster and moved to, or married someone from, or never forgot
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#1 Auckland to Dubai to everywhere for a while now, and I have noticed that crew all have one layover that did something to them. Not the best one. The one that changed something. Mine is Lisbon, once, for 30 hours, in 2022, and I am learning Portuguese and I do not entirely know why. Share yours.
The ones I know from other crew
A colleague who did a Cape Town layover in her first year and now owns a flat there and spends every leave in it.
A purser who met her husband in a bar in Nice on a night stop and moved there when she stopped flying. They have a bakery.
A crew member who did a Kathmandu layover, went to a temple on the crew walk, and came back with a different idea about what he wanted from his life. He left flying two years later to work for a charity. He is happy.
A Filipino colleague who did a Toronto layover, saw the snow for the first time, and has since emigrated there.
Why it happens
I think the layover is a strange kind of exposure: you are dropped into a city with no plan and no responsibility and a body that thinks it is 3am, and you see the place without the filter of a holiday. Some cities look better that way and some look worse. The ones that look better at 6am on no sleep are the ones you fall for.
The question
Which city, when, what did it do, and did you act on it?
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#2 Melbourne, 2017, a 48 on a rainy weekend, and I moved there when I left the airline. It looked good at 6am on no sleep in the rain. That is the test and it passed.
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#3 Lisbon, also. Reserve call, 2023, 30 hours, and I am not learning Portuguese but I am looking at the property websites in a way that worries my mother.
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#4 Chicago, a winter layover, the lake frozen and the city empty and the crew hotel warm, and I cannot explain it and I bid it every year. I have not acted on it. I might.
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#6 Buenos Aires, 2021, and I met someone, and it did not last, and I still bid the route because the city is where I was happiest for 48 hours. That counts, I think.
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#7 Tokyo, my first international trip, 2018, and I have not moved there and will not, but I have studied Japanese for six years because of one walk through Shinjuku at 5am and I have never regretted an hour of it.