"This Place Has Changed" August 12, 2022

[JJD]

I was partially on the right track, but I was focused on capital cities that had changed names, as opposed to all possible cities in the world (or a continent.) Also, I couldn’t unsee Dublin.

[CPJohnson]

I'd be interested to learn which city was the first that folks "saw." For me it was Durban.

Tunis.

[femullen]

I'd be interested to learn which city was the first that folks "saw." For me it was Durban.

Durban for me too. Then quickly Lagos. At that point I was just trying to confirm AFRICA, so the rest came in pretty short order. As confessed in a previous post, though, this is not the speed at which I typically find solutions.

[jrdad]

I was convinced the answer was Alaska by substituting a letter and anagramming:
lAgos
?
moanA
auStin
uKraine
dubAi

I just couldn't get the L.

[CPJohnson]

I spent the most time in the Greek letter rabbit hole. I saw EPSILOG/epsilon and LTA/eta and was sure I was onto something (never mind that no place names were involved). I found many instances where the themer letters could be transformed into xi, pi, mu, and nu, but I could never make the letters spell anything. And there were more than 6.

The African-cities-with-one-letter-changed were all at either the beginning or the end of the themers. If I had been thinking more clearly, I would have realized that ISPEN/Aspen didn't fit. Spent a lot of time looking at several cities not in Africa.

[iggystan]

I'd be interested to learn which city was the first that folks "saw." For me it was Durban.

Lagos

[vandono]

I'd be interested to learn which city was the first that folks "saw." For me it was Durban.

Naples, unfortunately.

[boharr]

I'd be interested to learn which city was the first that folks "saw." For me it was Durban.

Lagos

[Joe Ross]

I'd be interested to learn which city was the first that folks "saw." For me it was Durban.

In order:

LAGOS
TUNIS
FEZ (DOH!)
ORAN
ACCRA
DURBAN

• Aurbin - interwebbed, nothing

• dArbin - interwebbed, nothing

• duAbin - interwebbed, nothing

• durAin - interwebbed, nothing

• durbAn - interwebbed, A-HA!*

*Yes, I was that clueless.

[flyingMoose]

I'd be interested to learn which city was the first that folks "saw." For me it was Durban.

Durban for me too. Then quickly Lagos. At that point I was just trying to confirm AFRICA, so the rest came in pretty short order.

Same here.

[Tom Shea]

I'd be interested to learn which city was the first that folks "saw." For me it was Durban.

Fez while filling in the answer, then looked right at logos/Lagos.

My company had a plant in Durban. Roma was the one that threw me, by not being in Africa.

Still very happy to be ashore, after many weeks adrift.

[KayW]

I saw LAGOS almost immediately. But geography is NOT my strong suit and I didn't see anything else for a long time. I knew FEZ only as a hat but it finally occurred to me to look it up. When I saw it was a place, I started looking harder. I'd at least heard of TUNIS and ACCRA.

I was hung up for a long time on the similar:
PEPSI/PEZDI/PENSE
SULTAN/NUTNAS
CURAIN/DURBIN

but couldn't get anywhere with those.

[mheberlingx100]

I'd be interested to learn which city was the first that folks "saw." For me it was Durban.

Lagos, and then Tunis (our street name when we lived in SoCal).

Fez was last. Mentally dismissed using Pez for anything. Backsolved to get there.

[kurtalert]

Initially, I was stuck on URBIN/URBAN, finding SILO in pepSI LOgos, PEZ -> PAZ (as in LA PAZ, Bolivia).

Durban & Lagos were the first correct winners for me. Tunis wasn't far behind, not because I knew Tunis, but because I knew Tunisia, and quickly learned that there was a Tunis within Tunisia. At that point, I had 3 full words from the long clues transformed into new cities- no jumbling or partial/multiple word use required, all of them were in Africa, and the changed letters top to bottom spelled out A__I_A. It was obvious that I had the solution correct now, and I just needed to backsolve the rest for confirmation before I submitted. One quick Google search to pull up a list of large African cities, and a few minutes later, I'd confirmed the F, R, and C.

Without Google, FEZ is only a hat to me, I'd forgotten that Accra existed (though I have at least heard of it before) and Omar is just a man's name. Fortunately, the other 3 got me on the right path.

[higgysue]

I'd be interested to learn which city was the first that folks "saw." For me it was Durban.

Lagos

[Richard]

Durban then Lagos.

[MajordomoTom]

Saw Lagos, then Tunis, never got Fez (kept seeing La Paz) and kept seeing Dublin (for Durbin, and knew it was wrong).

Was also stuck seeing Accaba (or variants - the city in Jordan) for Acura, and Isle of Man ... so I had the concept, just not the execution. And was not finding places solely in Africa, so never saw that answer.

Never left the ship's bar.

It happens.

[Eric Porter]

I saw Aspen and some other things like that, but pretty quickly saw Lagos, Accra, and Fez. I realized that you only had to look at whole words and looked at the largest cities in Africa. I should have seen Tunis without the list, but I hadn't heard of Durban or Oran.

The thing I found most funny was that the answer didn't relate to the title, but something that all of the cities have in common. I could have submitted "Africa" without seeing the letter replacements, though it's the most common way to get a letter. In that sense, you can't possibly be "pageanted" by this puzzle.

[cbarbee002]

I'd be interested to learn which city was the first that folks "saw." For me it was Durban.

Lagos for me

[MarkWoychick]

Lagos and Tunis were 1 and 2. When I replaced Agra with Accra at 3, I knew I was on the right track and suspected where the final answer was headed.