Miscellaneous Forum

Yesterday at work I started chatting to a client who was obviously Canadian. The Roots backpack was a dead give away.
She said that she came from Newfoundland and I replied that I had a VT friend from there, hsm, who had visited us.
Things were quiet, and I casually said that I had had to write a difficult letter to my friend that morning, as his brother, a cardiac specialist had lost his battle with cancer.
My new friend turned out to be a recently arrived, intensive care nurse from St John who knew him.
This is the second coincidence like that. The previous one was a man who started by patiently explaining where Ontario was, but by the end of the conversation, we discovered that he knew Canadian Jane's father in Barrie.
Sometimes I think that I only go to work to meet up with interersting people that I am destined to meet. Of course, working on a centrally located transport information desk helps. So watch out if you ever come here. You never know who will be telling you where to go.

While sitting on a bus in Fiji I started chatting to a couple seated behind me because I had heard them talking about the bad weather in their town in NZ. I'm originally from NZ so was curious. Turns out they used to live next door to my uncle, were still very good friends with him and had even been to his mother-in-law's birthday party the week before!! Small world huh?

When we were in Cuba in January 2007 we were chatting with a family we had met earlier in the week. As we chatted I could see in my periphery couple approaching from my right. I turned when I heard, "Is that you, Brent?" Here was a couple who were part of the Camino de Santiago group walk I participated in back over a year earlier. This was odd, not to mention that after the Camino in 2005 the other person I was touring with and I were in Madrid a few days before returning to Canada when we looked out the window of our restaurant to see that same couple. Am I destined to bump into them everywhere? Which would be fine, as they are very pleasant. Anyway, lightning struck twice!

Brent

That reminds me of our family friends in Adelaide. My parents used to live in Adelaide and made friends with the Walsh family. The Walshes are a very fun, eccentric bunch, and they always visit whenever they come to Canada (which is every 3-5 years it seems). Well, my mom works with a girl named Cindy whom I went to high school with. Cindy's parents are friends with a family who are also from Adelaide, and they also know the Walsh family. Last week my mom and dad went to Cindy's wedding and ended up sitting a table over from this Adelaide family, and they ended up talking with them about the Walshes the entire time.

Or my sister, who lived in Edinburgh for a whole year had a roommrate from a very small hamlet located severel hours south-west of London. She spent Christmas with her roommate and his family on their farm. Last week my sister had a friend from Oregon state, USA visit her at home in Vancouver. This girl fromm Oregon brought along a British friend who, coincidentally, is from the exact small hamlet in England. Turns out he went to school with her old roommate's brother.

I met a couple in a winery in Australia, they were obviously from the U.S. so I asked them where they were from and they said Florida. I told them I lived in Montana and they told me they vacationed in Montana. I asked them where and they said Darby about 20 miles south of here. I told them I lived near there in Hamilton and they said, yes we know Hamilton, we go to eat at a restaurant there. The restaurant was The Spice of Life that I manage for 10 years now. Small world 10,000 miles from home and home being 3000 miles from where they live.