The world is soooo small

Have you ever met someone at a place you never expected to meet anybody you knew? If so please share

Well when I was in middle school some years ago I was on vacation in Switzerland with my friend and her parents .We stayed in their holiday house in Ascona.
One out of those 14 days we spent there we drove to Como in Italy(Italy and Switzerland share a border) and wanted to go shopping.
And who do I see on the street there???? Our English teacher from school back in Germany. I thought my eyes weren't working right. I told my friend and she was shocked as well.
We both thought we were seeing a fata morgana.It was obviously the same with him cos he starred at us but didnt say a word.After the holidays we asked him though and he was like"U should have said something.Then I would have invited u to the ice cream parlor or something".

 

I was sitting at a bia hoi in Vietnam having a bia hoi waiting for friends. This man I don't know sits down beside me and asks me if I speak English. I said yes, so he asked if he could join me. I said yes. we starting chatting and he says where are you from. I tell him. He says, Me too. I say small world. He says "By any chance do you know _________________?
He says my fathers name! Well I nearly died. Turned out me dad had taught him school ages ago and his was the first name he thought of.

I promptly called my Dad on my cell to see if he was having me followed LOL

They had a nice little chat, we finished our bia hoi and went our seperate ways.

Small World indeed

 

Great stories, I LOVE this idea, thank you!

When I first moved to New York, I worked as a waitress at a nearby restaurant. One day a young woman came in and sat down at one of my tables, and we both had this weird idea that we knew each other from somewhere. So as she was having her dinner, we kept going back in time ... college? No. High school? No. Summer camp? Nope.

We couldn't figure it out. Different jobs we'd had, different places we'd lived or traveled to ... nothing matched up. But we still had this weird feeling we knew each other! Finally, as she was paying her check, she said, "Okay, what about kindergarten?" Well, I didn't go to kindergarten, but told her the name of my grade school in Indiana.

Turns out we'd sat next to each other in FIRST GRADE, twenty years earlier! Both our families had moved out of state and it was purely a coincidence that, while visiting in New York for a week, she happened to walk into my restaurant during my shift. And we recognized each other! What are the chances of that?

 

Wow it is a small world.

 

I KNOW! Is that just not freaky. I walked around shaking my head for a days after that one.

 

It's indeed freaky.

 

When I was in the USA last year, I decided to climb Mt St Helens. In summer, they limit the number of climbers to 100 a day. Not having an accommodation, I drove around until I picked up a wifi signal and booked ticket #100 at which point, the wifi promptly died.

I headed out that way, camped for the night, then hit the mountain the next day. It was 4 hours up the side of the mountain, the last km or more of which was basically sand (ugh - exhausting). I arrived at the rim and flopped down to have a rest and enjoy the view.

I opened my backpack to get out my tissues and they fell out of my bag and into the crater (oops - sorry NPS!). The guy sitting closest looked at me and laughed and said "I hope that wasn't your lunch". I replied...then, he asked me where I was from.

It turns out that he grew up 2 houses away from my best friend (in Brisbane, Australia), went to a school that I knew people at. He had lived in Portland, Oregon for about 10 years, as he moved there with his Mum when his parents divorced. Knowing what Brisbane is like, if we had chatted long enough, we would have found someone we both knew.

So, I took out the last of my vegemite and shared a sandwich with him.

 

My life appears to be full of those moments, I have numerous such stories. I share one:


Stockholm, Sweden:
In 1st grade, I had this "boyfriend", we were always together and went over to eachothers houses to play. His best friend was a big blond kid that was little of a bully. Anyhow, I moved away and lost contact.

Houston, TX:
Fast forward 400 years.. Im at this Sigma Xi scientific poster presentation in Grad school and I lean over to read the name of my neighbor poster....Hmm.... that sounds Swedish.....
We started talking and hanging out a lot.... Eventually we started talking about when we were kids.. "I went to such and such school" "really??!! so did I!" and so on... I mentioned my "boyfriend", Richard and he goes "that was MY best friend".
He immediately called his mother in Sweden to fax over the class photo!
BINGO, surely enough, we went to 1st grade together...
He had moved to Kenya in 2nd grade and never came back to Sweden - but ended up in Houston for Graduate school just as I did. Freaky!

My cousin (in Sweden) backpacked back in the early 90s and walked into this bar on Tioman, a little Malasyian island... and promptly run into a high-school friend he had lost contact with.

What are the odds????