I used to share the same mindset. This year, my birthday happened to align with our family trip to Austria. My partner had discovered the one non-direct flight from London, which included a daunting three-and-a-half-hour layover in Hamburg, Germany. As you can imagine, the thought of such a long wait was less than thrilling. Just a week before our departure, I expressed my concerns about what we would even do in Hamburg for all that time, while my partner gently reminded me that he had meticulously arranged every detail of the journey while I sipped wine and offered little help.
The first leg of our journey went smoothly, and we enjoyed a pleasant hour-long flight to Hamburg. However, upon arrival, the terminal felt eerily similar to an American airport, which, as any seasoned traveler knows, is not exactly a compliment.
In Hamburg, international travelers must go through security again before boarding the next flight. Unfortunately, on that particular day, the security personnel were on strike, resulting in a chaotic scene. Thousands of passengers formed confused lines that stretched from check-in to security—essentially consuming the entire terminal. To make the wait bearable, we set our kids up in a designated play area while we held our spots in line.
And then something unexpected happened.
My daughter, absorbed in her iPod, had entrusted her beloved stuffed animal to my son. He was enthusiastically making it perform tricks—jumping, barking, and other antics typical of a 6-year-old’s imagination. One of these tricks involved the toy walking up a wall, and I watched as my son waved the toy at a peculiar red wall fixture.
Suddenly, chaos erupted! A loud siren pierced the air, red lights began flashing, and an enormous iron curtain descended from the ceiling, effectively splitting the security area in two. Airport staff rushed to manage the growing crowd, pushing people back or ushering them through. In a scene straight out of an action movie, one attendant even shoved an elderly man aside to clear the area. When the curtain hit the floor with a heavy thud, the sirens stopped, leaving everyone in stunned silence, as if we had just survived a tornado.
I instinctively pulled my son close, unsure whether his antics had triggered the alarm but suspecting they might have. Minutes passed, but the curtain remained down. When I finally summoned the courage to look up, I noticed a woman gesturing animatedly towards something nearby.
To my surprise, the Hamburg Airport fire brigade—seven burly firefighters clad in oversized yellow suits—arrived to investigate. They loitered near the iron curtain, stroking their chins and exchanging puzzled glances.
The sound that escaped me upon seeing them was reminiscent of the mother character from A Christmas Story when the waiters at the Chinese restaurant behead the duck for Christmas dinner. I clutched my partner’s arm. “I feel like I need to apologize to them,” I said, panic rising in my voice.
“Say nothing!” he hissed back. “We don’t even speak German!”
Just then, a mother with a little girl tapped my shoulder. “Say nothing,” she advised in a thick German accent. “I’m not saying what he did was right,” she nodded toward my son, who had stealthily retreated into the shadows, “but this is an embarrassment for the Hamburg Airport. Let them figure it out.”
Her insider knowledge was a relief. Who better to navigate German protocols than a local? We remained silent, and as a large portion of the crowd found themselves stuck on the other side of the curtain, the lines began moving more swiftly. Eventually, we made it through the checkpoint and reached our gate. We had narrowly escaped an international incident, and it was my 40th birthday, so we treated ourselves to some prosecco.
As we toasted, my partner reminded me of his role in booking a flight with a long layover. It struck me then that layovers deserve a certain level of appreciation. Isn’t life just one long layover? Turning 40 feels akin to a layover too—caught between youth and old age, between ambition and acceptance. For someone like me, it’s also the in-between stage of being a mom to toddlers and a mom to teenagers—a twilight zone of sorts. A brief pause in our journey can be a powerful reminder that the present moment holds just as much excitement as the destination ahead.
As we boarded our next flight, there was the German mother and her daughter. We made a silent pact to keep our son’s hands to himself this time.
In Summary
Life’s layovers, like the one I experienced in Hamburg, often bring unexpected lessons and insights. We learn to navigate chaos, embrace the present, and appreciate the journey, however long or short it may be.
Keyphrase: Life lessons from layovers
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