Right place, right time.

[tuapekastar]

I attended a Flyertalk 'Island DO' back in June 2010 in the Shetland Islands. Every January they have the Up Helly Aa festival which culminates (at least I think it is the culmination) with up to 1000 locals dressed up as Vikings, all carrying flaming torches, at night, marching around the lake and hurling the torches into a Viking longship, which naturally catches fire, and is then somehow propelled to the middle of the lake (or was on the occasion we were there) where it burns and sinks. I think it represents the funeral of a Viking king.

Anyhow, totally unbeknownst to us FTers when we booked it, this weekend was a special 'back to Shetland' weekend (coincidentally my paternal family hails from there), and they had a 'special' Up Helly Aa - or at least the part described above - and it was sensational to watch. Of course, it couldn't start till very late due to the late sunset. Very enjoyable and got to see it without suffering the Winter cold.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q5euzvdqdD0

Less spectacular (the flight was spectacular though), but still coincidental was when in NZ about 15 years ago we took a scenic plane flight from Mt Cook Airport, which included a landing on Tasman Glacier. A middle aged woman had her elderly father along with her for the flight - turned out he was the first man ever to land a plane on that glacier, on a nostalgic re-visit.

 

[Deleted member]

Reminds me, was staying at St Germain in Paris and late afternoon/early winter evening walking back to our hotel and we came across a small church and Choir. No idea what they were singing but we sat inside and listened and it was beautiful.

Visiting Worcester cathedral a few years back, my Grandfather attended the Kings School Worcester , and was a chorister as a young boy. We were walking around, soaking it up, and just happened to be there while the choir was practicing. A really amazing moment for me. Very moving moment.

 

[JohnM]

Driving in Britain some years ago on a Sunday and stumbled on an airshow. Made an instant decision to turn in. Glad I did - turned out that it just happened to have the Battle of Britain fleet (Spitfire, Hurricane, Lancaster) flying. Couldn't believe my luck.

 

[Hvr]

Driving in Britain some years ago on a Sunday and stumbled on an airshow. Made an instant decision to turn in. Glad I did - turned out that it just happened to have the Battle of Britain fleet (Spitfire, Hurricane, Lancaster) flying. Couldn't believe my luck.

Sounds awesome and turned a plain day into a plane day.

 

[Mitch_W]

In March 2014 on my way to India, had a stopover in Singapore and found Eric Clapton was in town for one night only. Being a muso myself and Clapton being my guitar hero, I was over the moon. Was an awesome night and scored a great seat! May be the last time I get to see him as he is touring less and less these days and hasn't been to Australia in a very long time, 2006 from memory
.

 

[EestiTiger]

Cool thread

In 2010 I had three months off work and spent the time travelling around Europe. In some dodgy bar in Brussels I met a new friend who as it turned out worked for the EC. I was telling her of my travel plans and she insisted that when I got to Slovenia I was to stay with her. Fast forward a few weeks and she emails me asking if I would like to go the football whilst I was there. Not just any football, but the opening of the brand new national football stadium in Ljubljana. Now, what team of all the teams the national Slovenian team could possibly play, would they invite to play the opening game of the new stadium? Yep - Australia! Through her connections in the diplomatic corp, she got us two tickets through the Australian Embassy in Vienna.

Small footnote on the flag... I go to le tour de France a bit and in order to stand out, from all the other Aussie flags, usually use this one. It pops right out for those on the box back home.

 

[Denali]

My husband is declaring our trip to Wellington for last nights rugby was right time, right place as he got to enjoy Wellington On The Plate Burger wars

He was trying to figure out how anyone can get through the 116 burgers in just two weeks (how long the Food festival lasts).

 

[suze2000]

Happened to go to St Peter's Basilica in Rome once as Pope John Paul II was leading a mass and special award ceremony. I remember elbowing my travel companion and hissing "quick take a photo, it's The Pope!". It was after all that surgery he had - 1992 - and he didn't look very well.

That same trip I was on the tube and was informed that we would not be stopping at a particular stop due to a police incident. Found out later a device had exploded there (IRA). Was glad to be standing in a freezing pay phone to call mum to tell her I wasn't involved, but she had not heard a thing about it. (of course, checking Wikipedia, it doesn't sound like it was as big a thing as the newspaper headlines made it out to be at the time)

 

[tuapekastar]

In March 2014 on my way to India, had a stopover in Singapore and found Eric Clapton was in town for one night only. Being a muso myself and Clapton being my guitar hero, I was over the moon. Was an awesome night and scored a great seat! May be the last time I get to see him as he is touring less and less these days and hasn't been to Australia in a very long time, 2006 from memory
.

Unfortunately he apparently has peripheral neuropathy, a nasty and incurable 'nerve thing' these days, which means while he can still play, he does struggle with it, so I reckon sadly that may be the last time you'll see him play.

 

[cmon0005]

No biggie but none the less pretty cool, on a trip to Kota Kinabalu in Malaysia a few years ago was on a mangrove boat tour only meant to be an hour, the boat driver enjoyed our company so much that he kept the boat out for 3 hours till sunset and took us near the heads to watch the sunset returning to the jetty at dark.

 

[nodabs]

Paris 2014 I got to my AirBnB and the host said "wow great timing tomorrow is nuit blanche!" which turns out to be pretty amazing in Paris
again in Paris 2015 we were accidentally in town for Bastille day and only realized the day before. found a nice spot near Montparnasse and watched the Eiffel tower fireworks with a lot of happy french

These shouldn't be accidental as I probably should have just known but booking tickets a while out is my excuse