It's a Small, Small World
 

In posting a reply just now, I was reminded of a time in Rome when my daughter and I were sitting at a cafe in Piazza del Popolo. The tables were so close together that no one was really having a PRIVATE conservation but my daughter and I hadn't paid attention. We were catching up on lost time.I had come from Atlanta, GA. She had traveled from a tiny village(she's a Peace Corps volunteer in Kenya) to Mombasa to Nairobi to Amsterdam to Rome. When we stopped talking long enough to thank our server for our drinks, the man seated at the next table leaned in toward us and asked, "Where are y'all from?"
Turns out he lives in Savannah, 3 hrs. away from my home!

Other experiences to prove it is indeed a small, small world??

Ditto. First meal in Paris shortly after landing from Atlanta. We had taken seats at a sidewalk table when a large group was seated behind us in the restaurant. They were from Atlanta as well.

Strangest thing when Delta offered a great fare to New York City. When we got to the Midtown Hilton the lobby was full of Atlantans from the same plane. After "visiting" while we waited in line, we crossed paths with some of them over the weekend...and of course on the plane back on Sunday night!

My husband and I were in Niagra Falls and met a couple from home standing outside the elevator going up to the revolving restaurant. That was a little weird.

I was in Glascow at a bus station and waiting in line to take a tour to the Highlands and I heard two women talking in front of me. They had unmistakable accents, so I asked. Turns out she lived down the block and around the corner from where I used to live.

I always find it amazing just meeting up with someone on a Philadelphia street that I know. The "timing" of it all always amazes me.

It is a small world. And we all need to remember that we all inhabit it together.

Good travels.

One time I was in London at the tourist info office. I got in line and standing right in front of me was a former co-worker named Francis whom I hadn't seen in 11 years. I asked her if she still lives in Austin, and she said yes. So for the last 11 years we had both been living in Austin and never had a chance meeting, yet we bumped into each other in London.

Another time DH and I were in Gatlinburg, TN. We were walking down the street and saw my aunt and uncle from Houston coming toward us. They saw us at the same time and we were all stunned. None of us knew the other couple would be there at that time.

One other story. The ex and I were traveling around Canada and the Dakotas. While in Regina, Saskatchewan we stopped a guy in a parking lot to ask directions to a store. He gave the directions, we made small talk for 5 minutes, then we were on our way. 2 or 3 days later we were at Mt. Rushmore, SD. As we were wandering around there, a guy came up behind us and said, "Hey, didn't I see you in Regina?" And there he was, once again.

It is a small world indeed.

My husband ran into college friends unexpectedly while in Greece and we ran into friends of my parents while visiting Bath, England (we're from San Francisco.)

We ran into our next door neighbors (then in MN) in the Munich airport. They were on their way in and we were on our way out. Neither of us knew the others were traveling.

Ran into a woman I had worked with in MN in a restaurant in Siena. She felt like she was being followed by staff from my office, having run into another person from my office in the Prado in Madrid on a previous trip.

We were on the local train going from Monterosso to Manarola in the Cinque Terre. A man who heard us talking asked where we were from. We said Michigan, he asked where, we told him, and he said he had been to a well-known shoe store in our town.

From the CT, we went on to Rome. On the way to CDG to come home, the driver picked up a priest who was going to the airport to get his mother who was arriving for the beatification of Mother Theresa. Again we were asked where we were from, and it turned out he had done a mission at one of our local churches and ran our riverwalk every morning while here.

Meeting people from other parts of the country who have actually been in my small hometown while traveling in Italy was really surprising.

While walking down the street in Edinburgh, my husband heard his name being called. Sure that no one knew us, we kept walking only to have our local funeral director tap us on the shoulder. Since we come from a remote MN town of only 9,000, it was quite a shock to all three of us.

My husband and I were once sitting in an outdoor cafe on Khao San Road (the tourist ghetto) in Bangkok. Suddenly I heard this loud American voice that sounded familiar. I looked over and it was a guy who had been our college roommate. We hadn't seen him in over 5 years and there he was, 10,000 miles from home!
Yes, it's a very small world!

Years ago, during a semester abroad, my roommate and I were sitting on a bench doing our homework in the garden of the Roche des Dom, next to the Palace of the Popes in Avignon, France. All of a sudden, I heard an unmistakeable Iowa accent. The speaker was one of a group of students from Ankeny, Iowa (I'm from Iowa) and they knew someone from our small college in Minnesota.

I was pumping gas late at night outside of LAX before picking up a friend flying in from Atlanta. This guy at the opposite gas pump started chiding me and warning me about the dangers of being out so late as a solo woman. Turns out he was the brother of my mom's best friend in our neighborhood outside of Atlanta. He lived in CA, but what are the odds we would strike up a conversation - much less have that type of connection!

I was walking in a remote village in Turkey and met a Turkish guy. We started talking and his brother had moved to New York. There his brother had met a woman vacationing from California whose husband was a barber in Los Angeles, who cuts Kevin Bacon's hair. How about that? Yep, it's a small world.

I have responded to this type of question before but will again.

Probably not the "small,small world" that sallyjane is thinking of but it was an odd story.

I flew from SFO to Amsterdam. Changed planes to fly to Venice. KLM put me in the business section from Amsterdam to Venice. There were only 3 to 4 other passengers in the cabin on this flight.

We landed in Venice. We debarked and got on the shuttle bus that took us to the Venice airport. Waited for the luggage to arrive. A very nice looking gentlemen (who I had never seen before) picked my suitcase up for me and handed it to me with a smile. I sure appreciated that.

Then we were in line to go through custom (which was a nothing event). The same gentlemen was three or four people behind me and gave me a smile and sort of a nod goodbye went I walked out the the arrival lobby.

My friends were there to great me. We went to their car and drove north. It was hot and humid. We stopped at one of the AGIP roadside places. Purchased bottles of water etc. A voice said to me "what are you doing here? Where are you going?" I turned around and saw the gentleman from the Venice airport.

My friends seemed rather irritated as in "who is this man?" LOL. Anyway the gentleman and I chatted for a few minutes. He was on his way to his "small home town". I was going to a small town in the Dolimites.

About two weeks later I was in another small city to stay with friends for three weeks. One day the husband called from his office to say to his wife that she and I should meet him at a cafe for lunch (rather than having the meal at home). So we walked to the cafe. My friend was ahead of me. Her husband was in the back of the cafe with his business friends. He waved too us. I was following my friend when a familiar voice said "what are you doing here?" It was the man from the Venice airport - our third meeting!

I told him I was in the city because I was staying with my friends. He asked who they were and I gently pointed to them and said their name. He almost passed out. He and the friend of my husband had known each other since they were babies. Their parents had always been best friends.

In the meantime my friends (who were in the back of the cafe) were looking at us in puzzlement because they could not understand why their friend and I were having this long conversation. And during this conversation the man from the Venice airport said he too had been in the business section of the KLM plane I had been on.

About two weeks later my friends in this small city surprised me with a "Surprise Birthday Party". And was it ever.

And one of the guest, the man from the Venice Airport and his beautiful wife.

We chuckled over all the meetings that we had had without realizing our "friends in commom".

It truly is a small world.

I was lost in Paris, and stopped to ask someone the way back to my hotel. That someone was the art dealer that was next to my apartment.
In Mexica City at the thieves market, we ran into a a classmate of my husband now Married to a Mexican woman.

We were in Rotorua, New Zealand, staying at some cabins for a couple of nights and the owner told us there were some other Americans there and insisted on introducing us. It turned out that the couple lived maybe a half hour from our home and not only that, but the wife was one of the best friends of my daughters best friend and had in fact met our daughter before!

After playng a round of golf at THE Saint Andrews golf course in Scotland. I was having a drink in the beautiful bar for visitors next to the couse and began talking to a fellow golfer from the USA. We introduced each other, and he stated that he has known my brother for many years in Connecticut. I have lived in California for nearly 40 years after moving from Conn.. Mike

Number 2 response. Last year during Easter Sunday Mass with the Pope in Rome, I sat next to a young lady from California. As it turned out, her parents live about a mile from me. Mike

I was just in Rio last month....keep in mind, not many Hawaii people go there. For one thing, it's a beach town so there's no reason for us to explore another beach. For another thing, it takes #%&@!!!! 28 hours to get there.

So I'm wandering around the Hippie Fair one Sunday, trying to walk off my hangover amongst wall-to-wall people. A gal from Hawaii that I had not seen in years tapped me to say hi! She was just as surprised to see another Hawaii person, especially in the midst of all these people.

We were the only customers sitting in a restaurant on a deserted beachfront in Sarawak, Borneo until another couple came in. My husband used to teach with the guy and they live in the next suburb. We come from Perth, Western Australia. Amazing!

When my in-laws visited us here in Germany over Thanksgiving, we took a trip to Rothenberg. While waiting for the Nightwatchman's Tour to begin, we heard someone calling my father-in-law's name. It was his doctor...all the way from Amarillo TX!!

We were sitting outside the Macdonalds (they serve beer and have clean toilets !) opposite the Pantheon in Rome with our twin daughters at that stage 8 years old when a young girl said hello to them, it was their nanny from when they were five, she was back packing thru Europe !

When I was twelve and living in Sao Paulo, Brasil... I was washing my hands in the ladies room of a restaurant when a tall blonde woman came out of one of the stalls, took one look at me and said, in English, "I know your mother". Yeah, right. I just wanted to get away from her and walked back to my parents at our table, trailed by the woman. My mother gasped, jumped up and the two hugged. Turned out they had worked together in NYC at the company where my parents met. So she knew my father as well.

The second time, I was in Oahu in 1987 and someone sitting next to me on the beach got up to say hello to a guy walking toward him. I looked up and it was someone I'd gone to high school with in Brussels in the mid-sixties. Talk about "let's catch-up" time !

Patricia

This is one of my favorite stories! When I lived in Paris, I was in the Musee D'Orsay, and saw - I kid you not - the head cheerleader from high school (isn't that the person one always runs into in movies?). It was lovely to be able to say: "What are you doing now? I live here."

Another time, I called up my college friend, a German from Frankfurt, who had been an exchange student at my small town university (in the U.S.). I thought I'd take a weekend trip to visit him in Frankfurt. We both laughed at the coincidence that that very weekend, another friend of ours from my small town was also visiting him in Frankfurt. They ended up visiting me in Paris, and while touring Notre Dame, a woman (also from our small town university) was surprised to run into us.

I also ran into a friend from Shanghai (where I live now) in the middle of a temple at Angkor in Cambodia.

Last September in Paris, one day after lunch I felt I just HAD to go see the patisserie/boulangerie on the cornder of rue de Rennes/rue de Mezieres. I wasn't that hungry but I remembered the place from my previous trip, it has a beautiful, old façade, I wanted badly to try their pear-chocolate Alsacienne. While coming out of the shop I met a former colleague from my studies in The Hague. We hadn't met for 2.5 years, I knew he lived in Paris but had been unsuccessful in trying to contact him before my trip. He happened to live right across the street and invited me over (needed to climb 7 flights of stairs to get there). His ex-boyfriend was just visiting and all three of us had a lovely talk accompanied by some great Alsacienne cake. My first visit to a (tiny) Parisian apartment. I then went on to take a look at the Objets d'Art department at the Orsay and later fell in love with some Bonnard paintings. What a day!

I ran into two friends in San Marco Piazza in Venice unexpectedly. We knew we would be in Italy at the same time, but according to our schedules, we were not going to be in the same cities at the same time. So my aunt and I are sitting outside a restaurant sharing a bottle of wine and people watching, and there are my two friends walking by. They had a change in schedule.

I ran into a coworker one weekend randomly at a rest stop on the New Jersey Turnpike (we are from Virginia).

In Ronda, Spain, I met a woman who teaches at a high school 10 minutes from my hometown on Long Island. Also in Ronda, I randomly ran into a family I had met four days earlier in Sevilla, and we didn't know we'd all be in Ronda at the same time.

Karen

During cocktails, cheeses, etc. on the top of our barge in Chalon; waiting for the next to shower etc before we set off for the evening... the next boat over were laughing and speaking in English;
Australians on their annual 6 week trip to the barge THEY OWNED (totally cool IMO), anyway they turned out to be first cousins of 3 people in our group!
They still write and e-mail.

In the summer of 2003 we were staying at the Hotel Porte Doree in Paris which is run by a French man and his American wife who is from the Sacramento area. Our newpaper had printed an article about the hotel. We were walking across the street in front of the hotel and heard "Hey John!!!" Turns out one of my husband's golf buddies had read the same article and asked their travel agency to put them up in the same hotel. On that same trip a few weeks later my daughter saw Kelly Osborne while crossing the Kufudam in Berlin, and then a few days later I was in the Market Square in Bruge and ran into some of my students and their parents. It is an amazingly small world.

On our honeymoon 9 years ago in Fethiye (sp)Turkey, sat at a cafe having a drink before dinner, when who should walk by, my boss. I was aware she would be in Turkey at same time but she was visiting relatives hundreds of miles away. I recall joking before we went that we might bump into each other....strange!

Teacherlady, I read that article and wondered about the hotel. It seemed very inexpensive and a great deal, but nobody ever mentions it here. What did you think of it?

Sunday in Reims I was on the Mumm champagne tour with a gentleman and his wife. He was born in Ft Wayne, Indiana. I am from Indianaplis.

Yesterday when I checked into my hotel in Nancy, the owner told be he had a sister who went to the teachers colleger at Ball State in Muncie, IN.

Sorry about the punctuation. Though luckily a QWERTY keyboard, the single and double quotes come out è and È. Not sure why.

Indy! How's Paris? Gotten nice and warm for your visit?

Also interested in the hotel, TeacherLady. The photos are very nice and it almost seems too good to be true. Please tell us how your stay went at the Hotel de la Porte Doree. Thanks in advance . . .

A few years ago my husband and I purchased a new car and became quite friendly with our salesman. He mentioned that he was getting married the following spring. We promised to keep in touch, but, of course, we didn't. That spring my husband and I decided out of the blue to take a trip to Rome. If anyone knows what the crowds at the Vatican can be, you'd be surprised to be able to spot anyone anywhere. It's a blurr. However, as my husband and I were rushing towards the entrance gate to buy our tickets, who did we literally run down, but our car salesman and his new wife. He was there on his honeymoon, and was thankful we weren't driving the Jaguar he had sold us the winter before!

Well I have never run into anyone I know and maybe this is not the place to post this....but I often see people who are "dopplegangers". (is that what they call them?)..they just look exactly like some one else I know. I have to catch my breath often because the resemblance is so striking.

I will try to top my entries that describe the Porte Doree but if it doesn't work, I will tell you about it...

Info about Porte Doree included in thread about going to Europe with teenager and living to tell the tale...

The night before leaving for Hawaii I met a couple at a party. 2 days later I ran into them there while crossing the street.

About 6 years ago I was having lunch at a restaurant in Big Sur and 2 co-workers just happened to walk by.

On another vacation in Hawaii I went whale watching and struck up a conversation with a woman who was dating a man I know who lives in Winterset, Iowa.

2001 while shopping in Paris I started talking to a couple. Turns out the husband works at the same studio as I do and we have a mutual friend who we have both known since 1975

Ran into a co-worker at JFK 2 years ago. We were on the same flight. We both live in CA.

My wife and I were walking down this narrow street in Rome, it was a crisp but sunny day, with the shadows of the stone buildings creeping onto our side of the street, when suddenly, out of no where, this couple we had never seen before appeared. We were just stunned. We didn't recognize her at all, then, when he turned toward us, we didn't recognize him, either. Talk about a SMALL world!

Then, to top it off, while in Paris on a very cold day, I was standing at a urinal, and there was this little one-eyed guy. But he totally p*ssed me off. I had a serious discussion with him, which kind of shook him up. That really put him in his place, so then I left.

--Marv

5 years ago, on my first trip to Florence, I was walking through a piazza when I heard my name called. I ignored it, because I didn’t know anyone in Florence. They called again, this time using my first name (I use both my first & middle names). Turned around and it was an old family friend and his wife. Now, not only does he live in the same city as me, but at the time he worked up the street from me as well. I had NEVER run into him at home. Hadn’t seen him in a few years. Had to go around to world in order to catch up with an old friend!