It's a Small World After All (share your stories)

Often i'm amazed at how small this world seems.

Last week the group I was traveling with ran into a group of kids on the Krakow train station platform (we were taking the same train) that we had met the previus week at a sports bar in Prague while watching a Red Sox divisional series game.
Last spring my sister who was studying in London ran into the girlfriend (who was studying in Vienna) of one of my fraternity brothers at a club in Berlin.
Last week a friend of mine from home who lived in a neighboring town met one of my fraternity brothers in Australia, where he is studying.
Heres the best one-
A few years ago my family was walking down a street in Rome and we saw another family that is from our town (which is small, 7000 people) in NY. Niether family knew that the other one was going to Italy.

Do you have any similar stories to share?

 

It's funny that you should start this thread after your last one.

An old friend of my father's, who he has had no contact with for several years, called out of the blue yestersday.

He survived Auschwitz.

DL

 

I was flying on a TWA airplane from NYC to Tel Aviv. There was a hot gurrrl who was sitting three/four rows behind me. I saw her in downtown Haifa about two days later.


I had a crush on a hottie in junior hi school. - She knew I liked her. I went to an Astros baseball game, and was staring bolts at this girls nice looking rear after the game ended. I followed her a few yards from behind. It turned out to be the same gurrrl from school. She was with her older boyfriend. - I was um embarrased. I think we both were. Oh No !!!! At least she did not reach over and kiss him !!!!

 

Last week my family and i went to Orlando. Family in front of us on the flight there runs into us at the car rental agency. She jokes about if we are staying at the same hotel too. No big deal this is. Two days later we run into them at Disney. ( Its a small world, after all....)
More interesting was getting gas in Connecticut and noticed lady in front having the hardest time finding the gas cap.
Couple of hours later near Central Park in Manhatten she walks by me.

 

30 years ago, last August, I was getting out of my 64 VW somewhere in downtown Seattle. Because I was planning on some doing some packing up in Snoqualmie Mountains outside of town, I wanted to get a topo map. (I love maps.)

Just as I got out of the car, I see my former roommate from Florida and his old lady crusing down the street. He had left Florida that Spring headed for points North. My galfriend and I left Florida in June of that year to headed straight west to California.

After many, many adventures (almost all of which I have forgotten for some reason), my gal and I decided to head north to Seattle.

After even more adventures, my buddy made it to Canada and hooked a left to the west coast and then down to Seattle.

Somehow, someway, we both ended up at the same spot over 3,000 miles later. Go figure.

In fact, we ran into each other two more times during my last Summer of Love. But those are other stories for another day.

Dale

 

I've had lots of these over the years. The most recent occured last April. My family and I were taking our first cruise over the spring break and we stopped at one of those tacky private resorts in Mexico that all the cruise lines use. Anyway, we're sitting on the beach and who do we see but some close friends of ours who coincidentally happened to be on a different ship that called on this port at the same day. It *is* a very small world sometimes.

 

When I was 12 I went to London and we went on the Stratford Upon Avon tour and we started talking to these people. Low and behold they were from Houston we lived in the same neighborhood and they lived one block behind our street. Small world for sure.

 

In Switzerland, putting Petrol in our rental car, we here another "American" English speaker. An older couple, they ask where we are from, telling them California, they then ask the city, and mention San Jose. Ends up that they lived in the same neighborhood as me up to that year. They knew exactly which house was ours and I knew where they lived, which was about 2 blocks away.

Two years earlier, in Dublin, at the Guinness hop store, a girl approached my Irish looking ass and asked if I knew where the blah blah blah was. Saying I wasn't from Ireland, she apologized and said that she has just assumed because of my red hair. Ended up talking to her for 20 minutes and we knew mutual friends, as she was from San Fran, 1 hour away from San Jose. Ended up at at pub later with her and her friends, one I remember from a party earlier that year....


It is a small ass world after all.

 

Went to Paris, France in 02. Saw a guy who I had seen about 3 times previous who was a regular customer at the movie theatre I worked at in Santa Barbara, CA. He was on a school trip. I was with my family. I had never talked to him before...I only recognized the face. I did end up talking to him.

 

Several years ago I lived in Va Beach with 2 other bachelors as roommates. Roommate "A" had recently moved back into town (from Delaware) after a serious relationship (with a girl I never met) dissolved. My roommate used to talk about how much he still loved her but she was damaged goods because of her ex-husband etc etc.

I had a friend coming to visit (from PA) one weekend. He happened make it to our pad before I got home from work, so naturally he met my roommates before I could provide an introduction.

On my rush home from work I get a call on my cell from roommate A telling me to make it home quick.

After several snide references to his ex in conversation by my out-of-town visitor he and my roommate realize they have very, very different opinions of the same girl!!

 

One of my best friends growing up, Brian, had been traveling in England and he happened to be wearing a jacket he had "Borrowed" from another guy, Steve. He had borrowed the jacket at a party 3 months before in Halifax Nova Scotia. Well long story short Brian is walking down a street in the middle of nowhere in Wales, looking for a nice little pub to stop and have a bite and a brew. He spotted one and as he went to open the door Steven stepped out, looked at him and said "Hey That is my Jacket"

 

Twenty five years ago, I was on a bicycling/camping trip to Hawaii.

I was sitting on the edge of the "7 sacred pools" near Hana, Maui.

My parents next door neighbors walked by!
I saw them again two days later on the other side of the island.


Erich

 

Erich, what where you smoking while you were sitting on da edge of dose pools?

 

Kind of an uncomfortable one. Friend "A" was in Jamaica recently and ran into Friend "B"s step-dad. In a hot tub. With a woman. She wasn't Friend "B"s mom. Ahem.

 

Me and Murcielago03 went to the same school. He graduated my first year there. VanCooper and I grew up in the same town.

 

I ran into my wife the other night in the pitch black dark going in to the bathroom (didn't know she was there), hardly needed the bathroom after that.


Small world.

Small hallway.

Cosmic.

 

About 15 years ago I was riding with my friend down the freeway in LA in his 57 fuel injected chevy convertible with the top down. As we were cruising along, one of the passenger side hubcaps decided to go off on its own. We
slowed with it as it made a perfect line onto the shoulder and set a course for for its target up ahead.
The target was two guys with a truck and trailer stopped on the shoulder. Two men were standing at the rear of the trailer, the trailer had its drop down rear door open and there was 1950's Corvette inside. Fortunately the hubcap had slowed, but it still had enough speed to glance off one of the guys legs, bounce up off trailer door and smack the the corvette right next to the rear license plate and ricochete back onto the road.
We came to a stop thinking "Oh S*$#!". The guy who got hit turns around, stares at us and his jaw drops as he stares at our car. He then says "I used to own that car! I loved that car!"
He spent the next 10 minutes poring over our convertible, his friend put the hubcap back on, they shook hands with us and we drove off.

 

I was in Stockholm for a Summer vacation with my family. During lunch at a restaurant downtown an older German couple started talking to us. After chatting for a while we found that they lived just three blocks from us back home. That night we bumped into them again as they were staying at the same hotel and on the same floor.

 

I was in Boston and I met this girl (6 yrs younger than me) and we ended up dating for 2 years before going our seperate ways.

About 3 years later I am in Florida and I went to a club and met this women who I ended up dating - she was 9 years older than me.

Turns out my ex-GF had met a guy in FL when she was there on spring break and decided to move down with him. This guy was the son of the woman I was dating

I used to joke that if she and I got married, and her son and this girl got married, I would have "been with" my own daughter! LOL

 

i was in town and had just picked up the latest classic cars magazine which had an article on X1/9's in it. i leafed through it, perved on the red X in the photos, and walked outside.

i looked up, saw a red X1/9 sitting in traffic in front of me, thought "wow, don't see many of those on the road". checked out the number plate, quickly got the mag out again, and sure enough, it was the exact same car.

turns out i know the owner from the fiat club too...

 

the aforementioned article: A Question of Balance - Lotus Europa & Fiat X1/9

 

Ahhh, welll, errrrrrr, It was an herbal remedy. HONEST!

I didn't inhale.

Thats my story and I'm sticking to it.
Erich