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"It's a small world"- your experiences


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I think I've shared this one before, but . . .

 

In May of 1999 we arrived by train in Marrakesh and called some hotels from the train station to see if they had a room for us. Once we found a hotel and were heading for the taxis, a Japanese guy came up to us and asked us if he could share a taxi with us and see if the hotel had room for him too. (I think he picked us because he spoke some English and heard us speaking.)

 

He ended up staying the same hotel, we saw him a bit in the night market, etc.

 

In October of that same year, DH was in CA attending a convention and ended up going to Disneyland one night with a group of people. As he was getting off the Matterhorn, someone waved at him. It was the Japanese tourist from Marrakesh--still on the same trip around the world.

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When we vacationed to Disneyland & SoCal in 1993 (from Canada), we did a tour of stars homes, then on to Universal Studios. My Dad will talk to anyone and everyone, and it turns out that the family sitting right across the aisle from us on the bus was from the same province, and the guy worked with my Dad's cousin who he hadn't seen in about 15 years.

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When we were on our cross country trip, we stopped at a restaurant in Lafayette, LA. There was a man that saw our little car with Oregon plates and stopped to have dinner with us. He had spent many years living in our (very small) county and was stationed at the same Navy base (during the same time!) as dh.

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Many years ago I worked at an international rental station in CA. I went to college in Europe and suddenly, at the rental counter, I hear the once familiar accent of that small European town and someone says (in their native language): "I booked this trip through...at the ...travel agency. My head flew around as I had walked by that very travel agency for years on my way to college. Thousands of miles but a small world.

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We unknowingly bought the house across the street from my DH's ex-wife. :lol: She had remarried and he didn't know where she was living until she showed up at our house with a plate of cookies. The last he'd heard, she'd been living in a different city.

 

Ouch! That had to be uncomfortable! I agree, you win.

 

Ok, you know when I saw your thread title I was thinking about the ride, right?

 

I'm glad that I wasn't the only one opening this thread to post about my pleasant experiences on the ride. :D

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Many moons ago, when I was young, I went on a whirlwind tour across 5 states with my dm and her 3 sisters. At one point, several hundreds of miles away from our hometown, we stopped at a gas station.

 

Two cars pulled quickly in and parked next to ours. A man jumped out from one and a woman from the other and they fell into each others' arms and began kissing madly. One of my aunts cleared her throat and said, "Hello, Bernice, hello, Tom..." They were from our hometown. They were married. Not to each other!:001_huh: Small world, isn't it?;)

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I've been thinking about this thread all day!

 

Two more--

 

I went with an older friend to a DAR luncheon meeting as a guest about 3 years ago, here in VA. While in line for lunch, I started chatting with an older woman in front of me. Turns out she had lived in the same town in OH and went to my church about 2 years before we moved there when I was a little girl.

 

I grew up in a small suburb of Akron, OH. Our across-the-street neighbors were a lovely Catholic family, very close to us, with 5 children. We did not really keep in touch, tho, after most of my family moved to FL (and subsequent other places). My brother stayed in OH, married, and had kiddos. About 7 years ago, he got cancer. His primary oncology nurse was our neighbors' daughter, Chris. It was so special to have her. She was a truly wonderful nurse.

He died, and those old neighbors were such a comfort to my parents, especially.

About a year later, she got a brain tumor, and died a few months after that. My mom was able to comfort her mother, with an understanding heart. They remain so dear to us--miles and time cannot separate those bound by memories, good or bad.

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When I was about 18, my mom and I took a trip to England. We were in front of Buckingham Palace with hundreds of people from around the world watching the changing of the guard, and it turned out that the tourists standing next to us were from the same small town in Massachusetts that we lived in - they lived about a mile up the road from us. I think my mom even kept in touch with them for awhile after we got back home.

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We adopted our daughter last year from Latvia, and the adoption process requires three trips to finalize. DH and DD traveled back to Riga (the capital city) to complete paperwork at the U.S. Embassy there. DD happened to be wearing my college sweatshirt that day - from a small, private liberal arts college in rural PA with about 1500 students.

 

A man walked into the Embassy, sat down, looked strangely at DD, and then walked over and introduced himself to my DH. Turns out, he graduated from the same small college I did. :001_smile:

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My dad and his best friend from jr. high who had lost touch after my dad's family moved from Illinois literally ran into each other at their 600 student college in TN.

 

My sister and her husband visited a church they picked out of the phone book while traveling through Texas and ran into (not literally) my college roommate who had moved to that area for a job. None of those involved had any family or historical connection to this area of Texas and my sister did not know that my college roommate was living in TX before BIL spotted her.

 

A coach from the Christian school that my DH and his brothers attended in a small town in FL before moving to a smaller town in TN came in a completely unrelated way to be a youth pastor in the same small TN town.

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My mom's family moved to FL back in 1960 and my parents are still there. Mom got a new car and couldn't figure out how to open the gas door. A nice younger man walked over to see whether he could help. They struck up a conversation and somehow worked out that he was the son of her first crush/first kiss from her last year in Nebo, NC. She also held the door open for a woman earlier that same year who recognized her accent and asked where she was from. Turns out they went to elementary school together. In Nebo.

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We live in Virginia, but travelled to Maui for a family vacation when I was in my early 20's. At one of the restaurants we went to, our server turned out to be a good friend of my sister's from her high school cheerleading squad. They hadn't seen each other in a number of years and my sister had no idea she was living in Maui.

 

Another time, I watched a movie about a young man who went off to live in the wilderness and wound up eating a poisonous plant and dying a horrible death. The horror of it really stuck with me, so I mentioned it to my sister. Well, it turns out we went to high school with this guy. I never knew him, but she did.

 

Lisa

 

Well this is strange - the columnist who writes for our local newspaper just wrote a column about going to high school with the guy who wrote the book that became that movie - Into the Wild. The author's name is Jon Krakauer.

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I met a friend at church when I was in high school. He moved to California from the east coast to go to college. When his mom came to visit, she came to my family's home for dinner. She and my mom recognized one another; my friend's mom had been my mom's home ec teacher in high school in Maryland!

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Nothing recent that I can recall.

 

I lived in Iowa for 2 years and attended Kindergarten & half of first grade there. My Kindergarten teacher was Mrs. F. I moved to Ohio in the middle of first grade. In third grade my family and I took a road trip to Yellowstone. We stopped at a gift shop in the park to use restrooms and look around. As we walked in, there was Mrs. F with her husband!

 

I can remember a couple other instances, but they are all floating out of my mind at the moment.

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8th grade, hanging out with friends by the high school. A friend's friend is there. I saw her name on a prescription bottle. Her middle name is my whole name. Turns out she's my older half sister who I'd never met. Suprise!

 

WOW!

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I met my dh when I was 19 & he was 20. In getting to know each other we discovered we had a childhood friend in common. As we talked more I asked if he had known Rich when his family lived on "C" Street because I had really great memories as playing there as a child.

 

As I was reminiscing about playing hide-n-seek and tag with Rich and his neighbors my dh (then boyfriend) told me it was he and his brothers we were playing with. He had been Rich's neighbor on "C" Street for years.

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