When I was a wee little tacker of 9yo I flew to Europe with mum and dad. On the BKK-Bahrain(?) sector, dad asked the FA about having a look up front and we were lucky enough to get invited up to the cockpit (747 classic).
The vision is still in my head to this day - sun had just set over India, we were just off the eastern shore with the amazing network of towns all lit up beneath. The dials and gauges in the cockpit were all illuminated and bathed in the orange glow as it was getting dark. I stood there trying to take it all in, and probably saying little. Dad loved the experience as well.
Cue 20+ years later, and whilst I distinctly remember the event, I had not given it too much conscious thought in recent years. Then my first flight up the sharp end of a real jet with pundits in the back was out of Thailand heading to the Middle East. There were three crew and I was the spare for the first couple of hours - through the late afternoon.
My turn came up as it was getting dark, I made my way up the front, jumped in the RHS and looked outside - towards the coast of India with all the lights along the coast. Of anywhere in the world I could have made my "Jet debut", there it was, at exactly the same place, and at the same time of day and that indelible childhood event.
Sadly I had lost my dad a couple of months before and I could not tell him about it.