Coincidences

[whatagain]

Did it hapoen to you to meet by chance good friends or relatives at the other end of the world ?

We go to London and are at the same time as the friends we went with to Egypt. And we booked Harry Potter the same day.

We took the same flight as very goid friends to Rome 15 years ago.

We met friends in the same hotel in Corsica and others iin Guadelopue.

I was at the same time as my brst friend in Guadeloupe and we rendezvoused (what a verb) to go diving.

You ?

[bjd]

After I had left Canada and was living in France, on a trip to Spain I met a friend from university in a small street in Toledo.

[Kimby]

After traveling in the Chiapas area of Mexico in 1991 for a couple weeks during which time we heard almost no English spoken, and felt practically mute because even European tourists who are often pretty fluent in English preferred to speak other languages, we took a break from heavy touring to spend a few days at a near deserted 1-star resort on the ocean at Puerto Arista.

At dinner time, we took seats at an outside table under the thatched roof of the hotel’s nearly empty restaurant. There was only one other couple dining, and they invited us to join them. In English, with Midwestern accents, like ours!

It turned out the wife was from my hometown and her mother still lived 2 blocks from my Mom, and the husband grew up in the Milwaukee suburb adjacent to Mr. Kimby! So nice to be able to converse in the same language and even chat about familiar names and places.

What are the odds?

BTW, we still exchange annual Christmas letters, though we have not met up again since.

[kerouac2]

I made my first independent international trip to Europe in 1971, lasting almost 3 months. I ran into some of the same people more than once in Paris, Amsterdam, Florence, Rome and Copenhagen. The "tourist trail" has not varied much over the years except of course for all of Eastern Europe being added in the 1990s, but in 1971 everybody with a Eurailpass ended up in the same places, so it was not very surprising. And I would imagine that there were about 80% fewer tourists than now. I tried checking statistics but it's as though they only started counting tourists starting around 2002 (when there were 50% fewer tourists in Europe than 2023). I'm sure that individiual countries counted their tourists, but nobody has yet collated all of the old figures into one European chart yet.

Yet I am sure that even with all of the extra people, people still run into each other in Europe, particularly North Americans who often need to see the Eiffel Tower, Big Ben, the Colosseum, the canals of Amsterdam, etc. all within 2 weeks.

[mich64]

On our last trip to Ireland in 2022, we were staying at a fairly large Hotel in Dublin. Having arrived too early to check in, we had been sitting in the Bar when my husband decided to take a chance and approach the reception, while standing in line he was looking around, people watching as you do while in line. He could not believe his eyes when he was looking across the lobby at his retired Captain. He brought him and his wife into the Bar where we then sat and had a drink and caught up on their travels.

I think I recently shared the story of us while we were in Tampa, Florida at a hockey game, when we heard a familiar voice and spotted a cousin of my husband about 4 rows down. The Arena seats over 19,000 people and yet he was 4 rows away in our area.

[bixaorellana]

My goodness ~ you all have had some remarkable encounters afar with near friends and neighbors!

When I was in Paris in 2018 I saw my ex-next door neighbor's picture on facebook, with the Louvre in the background. He was indeed in Paris also and we were able to meet up.

More recently I went with some friends to the home of a woman I didn't know. At some point our hostess was telling a story about having to go back to the US to deal with getting rid of family property her "crazy aunt" wanted to liquidate. As she added details I kept thinking, "Damn, that sounds like Carolyn K and her situation." More chat ensued about other stuff and the hostess learned that I'd moved here from Oaxaca. She said, "My aunt used to live there. Did you know Carolyn K?"

Yesterday I was at lunch with six other women in a restaurant. A woman approached from another table & asked in unaccented English if we were tourists or if we lived here. I invited her & the woman she was with to join us. They were both from Canada and in conversation with one of my friends, the first woman discovered that they had a close friend in common.

[whatagain]

We live in a small world.
An anecdote I like telling happened when we were in Sicily.
It 1990, yesterday.
We were like K2 described, following a touristic journey and we met the same French tourists twice and said 3rd time we have a drink
We hooked up the next day and had a drink.
We were sharing travel’s tales and the French woman explained that they were once stucked in a small village with a Sicilian idiot who didn’t move his car. So she got off the car and yelled at the Italian guys in Italian.
The guys moved and our newfound French friend was proud to say that she had shown to this Italian guys what a French woman was.
At the end of the stay I am waiting ne sairung at Catania airport to give back the car. The rental shop is closed and late and I spot another tourist also getting nervous about giving our keys back.
So I engage conversation and in the ensuing discussion the Belgian guy tells me the same story !
Saying he was yelled at by a crazy French in Italian and that he didn’t understand one word !

[bixaorellana]

Oh, that's a great story, Whatagain!

[lugg]

fab