It's a small world...
 

Staying at a mas near Buisson, at breakfast one morning, we sat opposite a family of fellow Americans (the first we'd encountered after 10 days in Provence).

They now live in Washington D.C. but he grew up in our hometown on Long Island, a classmate of my brother. His mom still lives in his childhood home less than a quarter mile from ours.

Has anyone else had a similar Can you believe that!!! experience?

That is amazing! A classmate of your brother's??? Where is your hometown on Long Island, if you don't mind me asking.

Some years ago my brother was hitch hiking in the UK, and was picked up by a driver. As they spoke it became apparent that this same driver had given him a lift about 18 months previously, 6000 miles away in Southern Africa.

>Where is your hometown on Long Island, if you don't mind me asking.<

Kings Point, Great Neck

I spent my childhood in Wantagh - great memories of Jones Beach!

In 1993, my best friend was backpacking across Europe with another friend. They were waiting for the ferry in Brindisi, Italy to take them to Greece. My best friend's cousin just happened to walk past. She called out 'David' and he turned around. Neither of them knew the other was backpacking and they ended up travelling around Greece together!! I flew to Athens to meet my friend and ended spending a great week with her and her cousin, an amazing chap who had just quit the RCMP. Small world!

When my parents were on holiday they bumped into a couple the same sort of age from where they were born. After some discussions they found out that both my mum and this lady had been asked out by the same boy but had turned the poor chap down as he was an apprentice undertaker and they found it too creepy!

I mean in their youth of course...

My husband (though not yet at the time) and I backpacked around Europe together in the late 80's. We were in Instanbul when we 'bumped into' 4 friends from university who we didn't even know were travelling. My husband and I were in different programs, in different years, and in the group of 4 people we bumped into were 2 who he knew and 2 who I knew, though we had no idea they knew each other!

We were in Florence last year and my husband was wearing a wet on a night walking tour which ended at a wine bar.

It ended up being just us and another family with 3 kids.

My husband was wearing a shirt with the logo of his company. The other man on the tour noticed, mentioned that he was a purchssing agent that dealt with that company on a frequent basis.

Upon hearing the name of the company my husband mentioned that he was in sales and that he was on a conference call with the man's company every Monday morning....

They exchanged names and discovered that they knew each other. They had both been on the same con call every Monday for about a year but had never met face to face.

Second time:
When I was in my 20's I was in Puerto Rico with my girlfriends. I met a cute boy at the bus stop.

We got to talking and discovered that he was the son of my godmother. We used to play together when we were 5 or 6 years old and hadn't seen each other since.

Okay, I have family in Denmark and we also have close friends there too, but they do not know each other.

One holiday (ours) in Denmark I was visiting my cousin and she took out her holiday pictures to show us. In one picture of her and family posing in the foreground, I saw our friends in the background walking by!

We were in the Thieves'Market in Mexico City nd ran into a high school classmate from Jerry's hometown. He was living there married to a Mexican woman. We ended up spending two nights at his friend's huge house.

Opps typo:

We were in Florence last year on a night walking tour which ended at a wine bar.

It ended up being just us and another family with 3 kids.

My husband was wearing a shirt with the logo of his company. The other man on the tour noticed, mentioned that he was a purchssing agent that dealt with that company on a frequent basis.

Upon hearing the name of the company my husband mentioned that he was in sales and that he was on a conference call with the man's company every Monday morning....

They exchanged names and discovered that they knew each other. They had both been on the same con call every Monday for about a year but had never met face to face.

Second time:
When I was in my 20's I was in Puerto Rico with my girlfriends. I met a cute boy at the bus stop.

We got to talking and discovered that he was the son of my godmother. We used to play together when we were 5 or 6 years old and hadn't seen each other since.

Another weird thing closer to home:

My mother had worked at a variety store for 25 years. The owner decided to sell and the new owner immediately fired my mother (although I felt bad for her, believe me she deserved it - zero customer service skills).

Meanwhile 60 miles away... I used to stop at a convenience store and buy diet soda on my way to work. I became good friends with the manager so he started to sell me cases at his cost. This went on for a year.

One day I stopped by and he informed me that this would be the last week that he could offer me the deal as he had bought his own store in Malden.

I told him that I grew up in Malden and asked the name of the store - you guessed it, he was the one who had fired my mother!!

What a fun thread. I don't have anything to contribute, unfortunately, but keep the stories coming!

Just remembered another...

I was in Salzburg alone and after a long day decided to stop at an Irish pub for a beer.

There was a group of eight men speaking in English at the table next to me aged 40 - 70.

I was bored (and excited to hear someone speaking English) so I started a conversation with them. I didn't know any of them but it turns out that they all lived in the same town that I did back near Boston.

The next day they took me skiing with them in Germany. I had the best time ever!! Five years later I still keep in touch with a few of them.

We were staying at a small chateau (maybe 6 rooms?) in Burgundy several years back, and had dinner there the first night. There were three other couples from the US, and this was their final night.

We are from the San Fernando Valley in LA. One couple lived about 10 miles from us. That was wierd.

Even wierder was that one other couple was in the Navy, from San Diego. Oh, I said, my brother is in the naval reserves, went to Annapolis. So do his sons. Really, chimes in the OTHER couple - I teach at Annapolis. What's his name? I told him....the teacher had given my nephew an award at graduation four days prior.

Whoa!

My sister and I had just boarded our plane headed back to Texas from CDG. I went to the bathroom before we departed the gate. Someone called my name. It was my sister's husband. He was returning from Africa and connected in Paris, We had no idea he was on that plane nor when he was even coming back home. We were so happy that she had told him about our trip, because she has been known to travel with me on several occasions and never mention it to him as he is away on jobs often.

Another trip-my son and I were in Nice and a girl called his name. It was a friend with whom he had graduated high school.

A different trip-my son and I were in London near the palace when he saw a friend from college.

In Maui several years ago, I ran into my doctor at a restaurant.

Yes- this stuff is always happening. At the coliseum in Rome I ran into the son of my parents next-door neighbors - who I hadn't seen for at least 10 years (he now lives in sweden).

About 10 years ago my husband and I spent a few months in Thailand. On our very last day there we were sitting in an outdoor cafe and I heard a very loud, obnoxious American voice talking. Turned around and it was one of our college roomates who we had not seen in many, many years!

I have such confidence in this happening that when I took my daughter to Europe last summer as a Bat Mitzvah gift, I promised her that we would run into someone we knew- just that we wouldn't know who it was till it happened. At the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice,we ran into the president of our congregation, who then was in attendance at her Bat Mitzvah a month later, to offer words of blessing! He didn't have to ask how she spent her summer.

Not too long ago I attended a conference where one of the speakers had a familiar name.

He also had a familiar face.

We went to school together 50 years ago,

A friend of my wife's has been a widow for 15 years. She recently moved to another small town.

That same week she was introduced to another newcomer to that small town.

He was a boy she had dated in high school before she met her husband-to-be.

They are now "going steady".

((I))

My experience happened in Seville, Spain...while I didnt know this woman ,she was from my town with the same situation I was in, just the opposite..

I went to Seville with my mother and two young sons, I left my 2 year old son at home with my husband.
While sitting in a park feeding pigeons I met an american woman with 2 little girls. Quickly learned we were from the same town. She was there with her father (now remember I was there with my mother) her two young daughters( I had my two young sons with me) and she too left her 2 year old home with her husband( I left my 2 year old son at home with my husband).

I was very amazed how similar our situation was!

I was visiting my boyfriend who lived in Florence, Italy. One day he went off to work while I decided to re-visit the Boboli Gardens.

Once inside, I made my way down a hill toward the huge fountain when I saw a familiar face seated on a bench. As I approached him, he looked up and I could tell he recognized me too. I said, "You shop at Pavilions, don't you?" That's when he made the connection. At the time, I worked nights and weekends as a grocery checker for Pavilions. He was one of our regular customers. We both marveled at the "small world".

In 1989-90, I worked as an au-pair girl in France. In June of 1990, 2 weeks before I was going back home to Canada, the family I was living with gave me the weekend off so I could visit Paris.

I was at the Arc de Triomphe taking pictures of the view when I heard my name. I turned around and it was a girl who had been in my French class in high school (though she was a year younger than me). She had just arrived in France to begin her stint as an au-pair! We spent the rest of the day and the next day together.

February 1970, my younger sister and I backpacked through Europe for 3 months. We spent two nights camping on the beach in Crete, sleeping in the caves. There were only about 20 other people there, so we of course started chatting. One of them turned out to be a guy I went to high school with, though he'd grown his hair so long I didn't recognize him!

This has happened several times to us while on vaca actually. The most recent however...
We were travelling with my grandparents who own a stand at our city's Central Market, called the Herb Shop. My grandfather works it every day and is known to people who shop at market as the 'spice man'.
In the Athens airport, waiting for our luggage, a woman walked up and said 'Aren't you the spice man'? She hadn't even been on our flight...she'd come from another city near us, with different layovers, and just happened to be walking by our baggage carousel.

It really is a small world.

In the 70's I took a shared taxi from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Striking up a conversation with another English speaking passenger, I learned that he was the brother of my best buddy from High School.

In Honfleur, enjoying an afternoon beer around the harbor. Not many Americans around, but an American couple sat down next to us. I started chatting and it turned out they live in the same neighborhood (and have entertained) my bil and sil. freaky!

I have a friend i unexpectedly ran into in San Francisco 3,000 miles from our home town - not that uncommon but the next year i ran into him unexpectedly in Paris as well.

That he was 6 ft nine probably accounted to why i 'ran' into him but still strange not once but twice

Happens to me alot. Here's a couple . . .
I did a semester abroad in Israel. On Friday nights you can meet at the Western Wall in Jerusalem in order to be set up to have Shabbat dinner with a local family. The mother was from my hometown; Baldwin/Freeport, Long Island. She also lived 4 houses down from my best friend who she knew well since she used to babysit her. I also knew her brother who was only a year older than me.

Traveling in Amsterdam, my sister and I decide to visit a jazz club. It's a very crowded place, but as I spy the musician, I realize I recognize him. A few year earlier, I was working as a waitress at The Wharf Restaurant on Martha's Vineyard - a place where on Saturday nights the same band plays. Well the musican was the lead performer of that band.

I was on an army base in Chitose, Japan, on the island of Hokkaido--really the back of beyond. When I chatted with a fellow at the officers'club and we traded "Where-do-you-come-from-in-the-States?" comments, I learned that he knew two former college classmates I had known at a very small women's college in Spokane, Washington. He had met them where they were living in California.

Can you follow that? Chitose, Japan; Spokane, Washington; and somewhere in northern California.

One year we were in Spoleto, Italy sitting at the terrace of our hotel having a drink with friends before retiring for the night and we were commenting on the price of gas at a gas station near our hometown (at that time, it was Reading, Pa) and one of us in our party mentioned the restaurant by name (Tailgaters) near the gas station. The man at the next table turned and said "are you talking about Tailgaters outside of Reading,PA?" and we said yes. He told us he lived about 5 miles from there and always gets his gas at the station!
Dave

Sitting around the pool at a small hotel on Mykonos in 1997, we met a family who live in an adjacent suburb of Pgh.; in conversation we discovered we had some acquaintances in common.

I backpacked and worked in Europe for nearly 2 years after college. I met a woman at my hostel in Israel who I travelled with for 2 weeks into Egypt and Sinai..(as a young solo female traveller- I was always looking for friends to travel with in Middle East).. Six years later, I moved to Tokyo after graduate school and walked into my new office to find out this woman also worked for the same company and was on her way back to US. Had dinner and caught up. .... About 8 years later, I was reading a Newsweek (?) magazine article on life and how travel changes a person..and thought the story sounded familiar and looked at the author - and it was by this same woman!! Always planned to follow up with her - but figure our paths will cross again somewhere in the world in the future and we'll catch up then!

I ran into a high school classmate that I hadn't seen in years on Ile de la Cite in Paris.

%%-

My son ran into his best friend from 6th grade in a bar in Brisbane, Australia. They hadn't seen each other for about 7 years. His friend happened to bring along his t-shirt from 6th grade and they were able to have some good laughs over all the names of kids they hadn't seen in years.

In the Bush #1 days, we were in Edinburgh at a restaurant and the restaurant owner asked what we thought of Bush. We provided our comment and the only other customers piped up to agree with us. And after asking the where from questions, turns out one of them had worked an a teeny village in Alaska for 1 month the year before with an old friend of mine who lives in Seattle.

Another one. ... We were traveling through the southwest for 2 weeks and were on our way back home. We arrived at Grover Hot Springs near the teeny eastern Sierra Nevada town of Markleeville in the evening. Too late to camp in the park. We slept just off the road in the national forest and woke up early to hit the hot springs before we drove the last several hours of our trip. The only other two folks there were soaking at the other end of the big swimming pool hot spring. As we got up to leave (still early in the morning), we and they realized that it was a good friend of ours from home with his father.

But I think the one about seeing friends in the back ground of a Danish cousin's vacation photo is the best!

Didn't see anyone on my last trip to Europe that I wasn't expecting to see - darn.

On my first trip to Paris 27 years ago, I was strolling the Tuileries Gardens when I heard a voice that sounded familiar. I turned around, and it was my boyfriend's brother! (bf is now my husband.) He lived across the country and I had no idea he was in Europe.

Since then, we find that we run into neighbors or our kids' schoolmates almost every vacation (especially Spring break). We've been surprised to see neighbors in Mexico, Hawaii, Nantucket, Sanibel Island, NYC, the Bahamas, on the plane back from Barcelona, and just last month, our daughter ran into two former schoolmates in Paris and St. Paul de Vence.

About a decade ago or so I was in the Prado viewing Bosch's Garden of Earthly Delights. It is a painting I had studied in college. I looked over and standing next to me was my college roommate's best friend who had been in the same Art History class with me and had been in my study group!

taitai

A number of years ago we were backpacking in Australia and we met a South African guy. We kept bumping into him, and bumped into him again in New Zealand! After leaving him in NZ we did a bit more travelling, and arrived home a few months later. A few days after we got home, we were at a rugby match in Lansdowne Road (Ireland vs South Africa)...and guess who was sitting 2 rows in front of us? Yup!

This is a little long but extraordinary , we owned the Lafayette Hotel in South Beack, back in the 90. One day the hotel was totally full, all hotels in South Beach were full. One of our guests an American woman had an emergency and checked out late in the evening , a day before her reservation .
An hour later an Italian couple coming from Modena, Italy arrived. They had met at Miami AIrport by chance an Italian lady from Milano and her mother. They were flying between New York and an island in the Caribbean but the airliner left them standed in Miami. They were totally at lost, and ask for help to the Italian man who they did not know. He brought them along to our hotel, asking for a room. Because the women had left in a hurry we had a room . Next morning
the Italian lady from Milano met in the lobby with one of our daughters. Our daughter was studing in the University (FID) and was part time working with
Versace 's company setting an exibition in NY.
Well the lady that come to our hotel was her boss at Versace.! ( She knew we had a hotel in South Beach but she could not remember the name) Amazing?
but true.