Saw two college acquaintances while walking thru Pere Lachaise in Paris.

My husband and I were staying in a villa near Siena, down a long dirt road. I went in to Siena for the morning and was to meet up with me later. As he was driving in to Siena, he saw two women walking down the dirt road. One had a brace on her leg so he stopped and asked them if they wanted a ride. It turns out the one with the brace went to high school with me and we had not seen each other in over 25 years.

Walking through St Mark's in Venice during an acqua alta(we had boots) and came upon a woman from whom I bought flowers for years in San Francisco. She was sitting outside the Florian.<BR>And then..we sat next to a couple from England while dining in Venice..her mother and my mother in law had been on the &quot;Kindertransport&quot; 6 months apart.

I was sitting on the ground listening to some musicians in Tivoli in Copenhagen when a Japanese woman tapped me on the shoulder and said, &quot;Aren't you the lady that checked me into hotel in Santa Monica last week?&quot;<BR><BR>I had just taken a leave from my desk clerk job in California to backpack through Europe. The woman had been to gemological school in California and was on her way back to Japan.

I think I have told this story on another thread, but... A friend of mine was in Paris when he was told at the front desk that he had a message for Mr. ______ (himself). When he read it, he realized that it was for his brother who was staying in the same hotel. Neither even knew that the other was in Paris, much less in the same hotel!

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While on a Globus tour of Europe (like if it is Tuesday, it must be Belgium) in 1982, I discovered that a fellow tour member was from the same town in Missouri (population of 12,000) where my parents had lived for 20 years. My daughter chimed in about this house she truly loved in that town with a unique fir tree. The look on this woman's face was priceless when she realized we were describing her house and the looks on our faces were just as priceless when she told us that was her house.

I have two, my cousin was selling raffle tickets at her church in Anchorage Alaska and sold a ticket to a nice older lady visiting her son. When the lady filled out her raffle ticket and listed the town she was from, my cousin remarked that our grandmother lived in the same small town in Illinois. Turns out grandma and the visiting lady play cards together every Monday.<BR>The second happened to my mother and I while we were in a lace shop in Belgium. Mom turned around and saw a shop keeper from our same home town in Illinois. It's a very small world.<BR>

love reading these! ttt

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years ago we went to a club Med.Supposed to go to the Bahamas but Hurricane Hugo had other ideas.We ended up in St. Lucia,very far away.We were at dinner with another young couple talking about our child delivering experiences when who should get up from the next table!! my obgyn..He did not look happy!<BR>Karen

I travelled to the New York City and was walking around the Old Masters paintings in the Metropolitan Museum. I turned around and a girl from my seminar at university back in Paris was looking at a painting. We had no idea we both were going to New York City at the same time let alone to the MET!

I absolutely love these stories. I have a very distinct last name, so much so that if you know someone with the same last name they are related somehow. I also come from a very large family so six degrees of separation is a game I love to play when I travel. I have many stories of meeting people who know members of my family. My favorite stories are:<BR><BR>1. cruising on a ship from Athens to London I was at dinner one night and a woman walked up to me and asked if I was related to Norbert XX. Yes I said, he is my uncle. The woman then replied that she had been at dinner the previous night and looked across the dining room and saw my profile . . . and she said to her husband . . . &quot;that woman, with her profile, has to be related to Norbert&quot;. Sure enough when she went back to her cabin she said she checked the passenger manifest and saw a &quot;XX&quot; on the list. The next night she spoke to me in the dining room. It seems they had been very good friends with my aunt and uncle but had lost touch when they moved 20 years ago. I was able to put the friends back in contact with each other.<BR><BR>2. An uncle of mine was travelling solo in Costa Rica and pulled into a roadside restaurant at the end of a dusty road in the middle of nowhere. He noticed that the only other car in the lot had British Columbia liscense plates (his home province).<BR><BR>He went inside and there was a couple and their 16 year-old daughter eating lunch. My uncle said hello and mentioned that he was also from BC. He asked them where in BC they were from and they replied &quot;Williams Lake&quot;. Williams Lake is not my uncle's home town but he said that he had a nephew (my brother) who lived there -- perhaps they knew of him. He mentioned my brother's last name (very distinct and not common) and the daughter piped up . . . &quot;really? Stewart XX is my boyfriend!&quot;. It turns out that my brother's son was dating the daughter.

My story happened just last May and is a direct result of this Fodor's board! My family took an 8 night Med cruise on the Splendour of the Seas. I researched all the ports like a nut for months so we would use the little time we had in each port to the max. Just before we left I knew there was a little town in Sicily above Taormina but could not remember or find it. So I came back to this board inquiring and sure enough a couple of people filled me in--Castelmola!! I had the name of a restaurant to have lunch and a great spot for views above it. It was set into an old castle and the viewing was up on top of the castle. While we were enjoying the remarkable views we got chatting with another nice family who loved it as much. The lady said&quot;I am so glad to have found this place on the Internet&quot; I replied&quot;That is where I found it!&quot; She then pulls out copy of a Fodor's posting to show me where she found it and yes you guessed it --it was my request for info on this town she had in her hot little hand. They were from Texas and we were from Connecticut!!! She got so excited and started jumping up and down. She then asked me for my autograph on the email to show her friends. Now NOONE has ever asked for my autograph before!! I was most happy to oblige. She also had a picture taken of the two of us to show her friends. When I returned from my trip there among my emails was a copy of this picture!! And that boys and girls is my favorite small world story!! Helen

My college roommate in the U.S.) moved to Israel to study and I graduated and moved away. We lost touch and I couldn't track him down. 4 years later I moved to a big city &amp; went exploring. I wandered into a small record store and there he was, managing the place.<BR><BR>It turns out we both moved to the city less than a week earlier. 10 years later and we're still close friends.

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I just stumbled over this thread and can't believe that it was one that I posted nearly three years ago! <BR><BR>Two additions: a year ago in a remote part of Mexico, my family walked into a sand floor thatched roof restaurant for breakfast. We sat down at a table, and looked at the only other occupied table in the restaurant to see that Jessica Lange (who lives in our state) was there with her family. Three months later on New Years' Day, my boys and I boarded a plane from London. The young man just ahead of us turned to my 12 year old and said, I remember you from Mexico. It was one of her sons and her husband who had been to London to see Jessica in a play.<BR><BR>And finally, last month, we went to Sorrenot, Italy. We took a boat to Capri, and approached the funicular ticket booth, where we and two other groups were fumbling with our Euros and trying to figure out how much it cost. We were all speaking English, and after we got our tickets, we asked where we were all from - it turns out we all live within 10 miles of each other in a Minneapolis suburb. I found this weird because there were 3 independent groups of travelers from the same place ending up in the same place in Italy.

My wife had to have a stem cell transplant for cancer this past year (she spent a month in the hospital). Once we got the green light to travel, we took a celebratory trip. We noticed a woman who looked so familiar across the aisle on our return flight home. We wracked our brains for three hours and could not figure out how we knew her (church? no. commuter rail? no. work? no.). Later, at the baggage claim, the woman and her husband came near us and one of us said, &quot;Don't I know you?&quot; It turned out it was one of the nurses who administered my wife's transplant.

Oh darn, Joanne! I thought you were going to write that you were behind Jessica Lange in line at the ticket booth!

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