Happens all the time. Once I was with a group of American travelers in London. We had some free time, so we dispersed to do our own thing. I was going to visit a friend in the north of London, so a young man from Oklahoma, whom I didn't really know said he would share a cab with me as he also was going in that direction. I said "Hampstead," and he said, he too was going there. When we got closer I told him the name of the street, and he said--"That's funny. I'm going there too." Then I gave the address, and he said,"oh my, that's the place I'm going!" Seems we both knew the same lady in London. She knew I was coming but he had decided at the last minute. I told her I had a surprise and my new acquaintance popped from behind the bushes and scared her silly.

To the top for future reference. What a neat thread!

It happened to me too. One day I was sitting in a restaurant in Richmond, VA where I was in graduate school. The familiar face of a former boyfriend suddenly appeared across the table. Neither knew the other was in Richmond and we were both studying at the same university. His pottery studio was just on the other side of the hedge from my apartment. We hadn't crossed seen each other in many years. Unfortunately I had been to the dentist that morning and looked rather like a chipmunk!

OK, here's my contribution. During my degree, I spent a year out at Vienna's technical university. One weekend a group of us decided to go to Prague for a few days, and in the train station as we were queuing up to get our tickets to come back, one of my old classmates was standing in the queue in front of me! Not only that, but he was also on a weekend away, as he was on his year out from university...you've guessed it, studying in Vienna!

I'm glad to see that others have had the same experiences as myself - here's mine... <BR> <BR>A few years ago, myself and two friends from college went to Austrailia on holiday. In college, I had the reputation of knowing everybody so both of my friends were convinced that I would run into somebody in Oz and had even bet a couple of pints on it. Two weeks passed without meeting anybody and we headed onto Bali for a few days before heading back home. The last morning of our stay there, I was convinced I had won the bet and started taunting my friends about the pints they'd owe me in Dublin. But no, a hour later I was walking down a street in Kuta when this girl walked by me...stopped and said Fiona!! She was a girl I had been in high school with in a small town in Ireland (pop. 3000). Needless to say my friends at first could not believe it but they won the bet and I ended up buying the drink!!! I've learned my lesson and now expect to meet people I know whereever I go and it always happens.

I not only wanted to bring this back to the top to get some more people to add their stories but also wanted to share one of mine. <BR> <BR>My girlfriend and I were in Munich in March of last year. We were sitting in the Haufbrauhaus (sp?) having a FEW beers when we started talking to the other people sitting next at the table with us. Of course it took me to break the ice with the other people around but not too long after a large group of people came in, some sat at the table we were at and others sat just next to us. My girlfriend got talking to the guy sitting next to her and come to find out he went to school with her best-friend's fiance and was going to be at the wedding. He's now one of my very good friends! <BR> <BR>Here's another one that happened to both my girlfriend and I. We were sitting at Hooters in Miami the day before we were gonna be heading out on a cruise. Well, at the table next to us was a group of 6 people drinking and eating. One of them went drop the lime into his Corona and then tip it in there. Well, when he tipped it back up the corona squirted across his table and all over me. So they all the sudden became VERY quite and wanted to hide from the fact that he just squirted me with Corona. I never know when to keep my mouth shut so I turned to them and said "YEAH, I FELT THAT". So of course he apologized and ended up buying us a Corona and we got talking, well they live the next town over from me and were going on the same cruise as us just a diffrent cruise line!! Needless to say we still keep in touch! <BR>It really is a small world!

I was on a working holiday visa in Australia, working in a deli. A girl I use to work and share a house with in London walked in on the very 1st day she arrived in the country. Six years later, when I 1st arrived back in Sydney again, I was walking down the street and bumped into my boss from the deli. <BR>In Darwin went out after a nightclub to an all night kebab place and who should be serving behind the counter, but a girl I had shared a dorm with in Sydney, 8 months previously. <BR>Another girl I met, arrived in Sydney from the UK and went straight to the Opera House to look round, on the steps she bumped into a childhood friend.

Know this is the Europe forum, but wanted to add: what are the odds of one cousin from Chicago running into another cousin from Philadelphia, having not seen each other for 6 years, on the cross-town shuttle at rush hour on a Thursday in New York, seated directly opposite each other?

My mother-in-law ran into someone she knew at Pullman, Washington (state, that is) in a small hotel in the mountains of western Saudi Arabia. Now, what's that chance of that happening?

When I was 7, I was with my parents on a ferry in the Thousand Islands of Canada. The boat was crowded and people were standing but there was room for me in a small space on a bench. My parents struck up a conversation with the couple I was sitting next to and it came around to where we're from. It turns out that the husband had grown up-- like 30 years earlier-- in my house and his bedroom was the middle one in the hall-- my room. Classic.

Here are two more: <BR>My Grandmother steps out to the corner store while staying with her sister in Manchester England. At the store, she quickly rounds a corner and literally smacks into her next door neighbor from her apartment in Ottawa Canada. <BR> <BR>We often joked about the chances of seeing someone you know on a topless beach. A friend of mine heads to Monte Carlo and managed to get in on a day of yachting. Being the typical Canadian prude, she decides she better "get with it" and lose the top (it's part of the experience right?). After a few minutes of "exposure", she hears someone calling "Michelle, Michelle!". It's a common name in that area so she thinks nothing of it until another boat sails by and who's waving to her and yelling her name - her old boss! She has a picture of the two of them because she knew no one would believe her! What an eyeful!

I have an errrrie one. Acouple of years ago, my husband and I flew up to Seattle to test drive a Maserati that we were thinking about buying. (Didn't buy it). After we checked the car out we went to one of those coffee kiosks to think about it. My husband was ordering the java and I went to find a couple of seats. This black gentleman sitting nearby kept trying to strike up a conversation and I kept giving monosyllabic responses so as not to seem "available". The fellow asked where I was from. I replied Southern California. He asked if my husband was from there, too? I said, No, he's from a Shore town in New Jersey. What the guy said next made me nearly fall off my seat. He said..."He looks like a guy I used to play basketball with in the 1950s." "I'm from a town near Asbury Park." Turns out they played Bball in eachother's driveway in the 50s. The gentleman was in town in Seattle because his wife is a DA in Atlanta and they were having a convention there. We were in town for 3 days just to look at a vintage car. Go Figure. And he recognized my husband after 40 years and 100 or so lbs! Serendipity.....?

In Bulgaria a couple years ago, I snapped a picture of a gypsy with his dancing black bear and then was trailed through Sofia for most of the day by the bear and the old women demanding a "tip" for my action. (Very common, I found out from my translator later). Two months later I was waiting for a train to Sandanski. It had been a long day. My translator was missing. My bad German (I can say "Look mother, this sweater is on sale for 15 marks") was of little use. (I had used my bad German in Varna to accidently rent an entire bus for a trip from a Black Sea resort to the train station for $4. I rode in horror down the coastal highway, thinking of the movie Speed, as dozens of Bulgarians watched the bus approach each stop and roar by. But I digress). So I was at the train station in Sofia, hungry, tired and wondering whether to proceed alone or try a game of charades in order to get to my train. "This day couldn't get any worse," I thought. And then, out of nowhere, the crowds parted and up stepped my old gypsy friend with her black bear--demanding the money I owed them. This time I paid. <BR> <BR>The second story is from Thailand. I was over there on a contract for the state department and was treated royally be my hosts. One night they offered to take me to Pat Pong, Thailand's famous sex district. I am somewhat reserved and don't even partake in "strip clubs" in the U.S. I knew that I would be bright red from embarrassment during my whole time in Pat Pong. But my hosts insisted. We got to the area and started walking through the busy night market. "See a show?" they said. "No, thank you." They were crestfallen. "You must. Why not?" I grew up in a conservative small town in northwest Iowa and knew that if I went into one of those places, somehow someone would see me and word would get back to my parents. (35 and still worried about what Mom and Dad think.) Finally, I agreed. I have learned, through travel, not to impose my morals on other cultures. (Murder, etc. withstanding.) We went in. We were assaulted--to the delight of my hosts--by young women offering their services. I wiggled through a show that was too lewd to describe. Finally, after an embarrassing 35 minutes my hosts agreed to my request to move on. We walked out of the dark bar and into the neon-lighted street. And who was standing there. The mayor of my hometown. Sigh.

Jay, you made my day! Two great stories... <BR>

Actually, my "small world" story has not happened in Europe....not YET. I was walking along a street in Seoul, Korea, when a guy approached me and said, "Weren't you in my class in college?" I hadn't seen him for a couple of years! Then a couple of years later, I was at a very crowded nightclub in Honolulu and ran into him AGAIN. It's like playing "Where's Waldo"--I've been to Europe 3 times already but haven't seen him there yet.

Jay, I assume the mayor of your small town was out there getting up the courage to go in?

I didn't stop to ask him. We avoided eye contact. And he's never breathed a word about it. So he must have had QUITE a night.

The story goes that my mother's husband, John, from south England had not met (or had no memory of) his older brother who was posted to Malta in the year John was born. <BR> <BR>Many years later, on a street in Cairo, a fellow approached John and asked his name. "I thought I recognized that walk," the fellow said. It was his brother. <BR>

While on my honeymoon in Santorini, a women overheard me talking and asked if I was from New York, it turns out she is my college roomates cousin. bizare that far away to bump into someone like that.

p.s......my story does not even compare to the ones above...how erie....