<p>Just returned from a wonderful cruise of French Riviera and west coast of Italy. Walking back to ship from the casino in Monte Carlo and stopped to rest a minute. A guy is sort of staring at me a second-- and then says my name. Turns out my old work buddy from the 80’s in Chicago is on a cruise on another ship. Last time I saw him was 5 years ago or so when he stopped by for lunch in Seattle. What are the chances?? BTW–Monte Carlo–wow. Nothing like waking up and seeing that out your window from the ship. Want to go to the race now really badly. And have more time. Test of cruise was fantastic. Loved Oceania. Great experience.</p>
<p>I have a couple of those. </p>
<p>Two times happened on spring break trips so maybe not AS surprising but the first one was in Washington DC at the national archives when we ran into some friends from Florida coming out of the building while we were waiting to go in. The second one was when we made a cruise ship stop in St. Thomas and ran into friends wandering the streets who were in port from a different ship. </p>
<p>The real small world one though was a summer vacation to Costa Rica when I ran into a bar to buy a soda (honestly-my husband wanted a coke to drink with his cigar!) and I hear my name from two couples who were acquaintances back home!</p>
<p>Wow, what a coincidence…there was just a thread for that!
<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parent-cafe/1469370-cosmic-coincidences.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parent-cafe/1469370-cosmic-coincidences.html</a></p>
<p>Many moons ago, I ran into my then boyfriend’s cousin while traveling in Europe.
Found the connection as my girlfriend and I were bedding down in a youth hostel in France.</p>
<p>Several years ago we were in Italy–Venice, as I recall–waiting for entrance into a cathedral (or church of some kind) when a gentleman approached us, having recognized my son’s high school from his t-shirt. Turns out this man’s now-retired dad was the attending obstetrician when DS was born and lived in a nearby town! Love those stories!</p>
<p>This didn’t exactly happen to me, but my ex-husband. He was on a work related trip for several weeks in the Bahamas. When the group finally got a day off, they were heading to the beach , through what he described as a wooded area on a trail. They came across a couple of people heading on the same trail in the opposite direction and it turned out they were my cousin and his wife !
My father in law is the kind of guy that also runs into people he knows everywhere he goes, even if it is not close to home</p>
<p>I am an ICU nurse. One day my friend was telling me a story about her friends child asking me if the child would be on my floor. I said no as that type of pt did not go to my unit. Forgetting this, I called the unit a few days later asking if they needed help. They did, so I came in, the mother of the child started to tell me the history of her child. I said I have heard this story before, (I hear lots of stories) then realized it was the child my friend had been talking about. So on a day wasn’t working, a kid who normally wouldn’t be admitted to my unit. out of 30 possible patients, I end up there. Weird</p>
<p>just remember that no matter where you are…never talk about somebody else in public! you may live in pittsburgh and may be dining out in el paso but I promise you somebody in the restaurant will know who you are and/or who you are talking about.(even if you are talking about some teacher your kid has back home) it will get back to them. murphys law or something like that!</p>
<p>I will second and third what the previous poster has said. Years ago I was a part-time book talker for Scholastic Book Fairs, special program where you visited schools in advance of the book fair to speak about the available books. I was at a neighboring district to my own, having lunch in the faculty room where I listened to a conversation among a group of teachers about a specific student and what a loser he was and what a pain his mother was in particular… now it just so happens that this was a family of four children. The boy in question had gone to nursery school with my older daughter, the oldest daughter had gone to the same nursery school along with my younger daughter and I was aware of the other two younger siblings. I wasn’t friends with the mother but we had spent a good deal of time together when our children were in nursery school, at playdates and at birthday parties. In fact I recall she gave me an extremely generous gift when I gave birth to younger d. These teachers would have had no idea where I lived or that I would have known the family… but what if I had been related to them or lived next door or our children were in fact friends…</p>
<p>I have a similar cruise experience, in Copenhagen. Walked onto ship and someone called my name. Turned out to be the daughter of my parents’ best friends. We were all on the same cruise.
Saw another friend while sitting at a sidewalk cafe in Rome.
Met hometown family staying at the same hotel on the big island in Hawaii.</p>
<p>We had a nanny from a small town in Utah. Everywhere we went she seemed to bump into someone she knew. We scheduled a tour of the Capitol with her Congressman and when we show up to the office, turns out she went to college with one of the interns.</p>