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it's a small world stories

Deacon923 said:
i don't have any really good ones. In March I took the family to Disneyworld and ran into this older couple who attend our church. I thought the chances of that were pretty low given the size of Disneyworld and the smallness of our church.
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Same thing happened to me with one of my wife's best friends' family from Jacksonville at Epcot.
 
attitudedeac said:
Went on a trip to Italy after graduating high school. In Florence, was walking the the Piazza Santa Croce during a concert and ran into my high school principal, who was there with his family. I stood there with an exasperated look for about 30 seconds before I said anything to him.
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I bought an amazing pair of cashmere lined leather gloves in a shop in that Piazza.

SMALL WORLD.
 
The world is interesting in that most everyone has a story like this and thinks "oh man, it's a small world." Then you look around when you're in the grocery store one day and realize there are hundreds of people in there with you and you don't know any of them. And then you think, "damn, there are a whole lot of mofos out there."
 
Met a guy from Ireland while traveling around New Zealand. Spent a few days with him, really cool guy and we really hit it off. Lost touch while in New Zealand for another month then caught a flight to Beijing. A few days later I was on a really remote part of the Great Wall and about a hundred yards away up the stairs I saw the guy again. Pretty crazy considering the distance between New Zealand and China and the fact that neither of us knew we were going to Beijing next and the fact that out of the eight or so places you can go to the Great Wall at, we both picked that remote spot on that particular day.
 
RJKarl said:
At Wake, I was going to see my buddy Ace. He was late. One of his suitemates, Burger, asked me where I was from.

I said,"Just outside Philly."

"What town?"

"Havertown."

"what street?"

WTF? It so happens he used to live around the corner from me.
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I had an encounter exactly like this while waiting to get into a frat party. Turns out he moved away while in middle school, but had been friends with one of my good high school buddies before he moved.
 
I started a new job in April. Went to lunch with my new boss and a co-worker the first day. So...
Co-Wkr - "You from ATL?"
Me -"No, I grew up in Louisiana."
Co-Wkr - "Where"
Me- "Baton Rouge"
Co-Wkr - "Wow, me to. What high school did you go to?"
Me- "CHS"
Co-Wkr - "Me to, when did you graduate?"

Turns out he was my age, but one year behind me.
 
When I was studying abroad in Adelaide Australia, I bumped into another friend that was studying abroad in Brisbane on an island in the Whitsundays.
 
Say Hey Deac said:
The world is interesting in that most everyone has a story like this and thinks "oh man, it's a small world." Then you look around when you're in the grocery store one day and realize there are hundreds of people in there with you and you don't know any of them. And then you think, "damn, there are a whole lot of mofos out there."
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Which makes it even wilder when you have a bunch of stories like these, which I do, which must mean I am magic.
 
Say Hey Deac said:
The world is interesting in that most everyone has a story like this and thinks "oh man, it's a small world." Then you look around when you're in the grocery store one day and realize there are hundreds of people in there with you and you don't know any of them. And then you think, "damn, there are a whole lot of mofos out there."
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I live in a reasonably sized suburb and I feel like I see the same people in Publix all the time.

But it is a small world. The small world phenomenon has been tested many times and it generally comes back true. We're all connected. I'd be surprised if I didn't know somebody personally who doesn't know at least 90% of you all.
 
Saw a fraternity brother in the international concourse in Atlanta on my way to my honeymoon. He was coming back from Peru. He lives in NYC and I live(d) in Memphis. Small world.

Also ran into one of Substar's best friends at Oktoberfest. He went to Duke. I didn't know him, but me and my friends were there and we saw a big group from Duke. We all started drinking together and ended up playing "the name game" and found out that one of the Dukies was best buds growing up with Substar. Small world.
 
This is more a Small Winston story than Small World story. I became friends with a girl during study abroad in Australia who also went to Wake but I hadn't known before. We were good friends abroad but mostly fell back into our old circles back at Wake. Maybe 3 years after graduation I went to a (totally non-Wake associated) new friend's house for the first time, and abroad friend was her roommate.
 
Since everyone in the world is connected by just six degrees of separation - some of these stories are not too ridiculous
 
On a train from Paris to Nantes for the US/Yugoslavia game in the '98 World Cup I sat down in a section of four seats with the other three empty. A father and his two adult sons took up the other three seats and we started making small talk. I was wearing a Columbus Crew shirt since I was living in the 'bus at the time and had season tickets. The father mentioned that he used to have season tickets until he had to give them up when he moved to North Carolina.

Oh, really? I'm from North Carolina and go to school there now at Wake.
One son: Oh that's cool, I'm doing my residency at Wake.

We keep on talking some more and the guy asks my name and when I tell him he asks "are you related to (so and so of the same last name) who's the head OB/GYN guy with whom I'm doing my residency?"

Why yes, he is my such and such a cousin, so many times removed and actually delivered me when I was born because my mom's normal guy couldn't be reached.

Wild! Laughs all around.

Then we start talking some more and I mentioned that I worked at WFDD and the other son goes, Hold up, do you work with So and so?

Yeah, I take over for him when I rock my totally awesome 8 pm to midnight Saturday night shift (only slightly more awesome than the 7 am Sunday shift I worked the next year).

Well, that kid was one of my best English students at whatever high school in Florida at which he taught.

That was one of the more interesting ones.
 
I was riding a train to a small town in Sweden when I started searching for english speaking people to help me with a train changing question. Heard some people chatting in english and upon approaching them found out that they were all Wake students.
 
Summer of 2000, I was backpacking around Europe with a couple friends from Wake. I knew that one of my best friends from elementary through high school was in Europe as well, but had no idea where he was. I was getting on a train in Pisa, Italy, and heard someone yelling my name. I look up and its my high school buddy. Random.

A few years ago, Ms. Kitchin and I were in Coronado. We wanted to rent bikes for ride a bit one day. As she was at the hotel getting ready, I was chatting up the bike rental guy. Turns out he is from the same small town in upstate New York was good friends with some of my mom's family and had worked in my mom's family's hardware store when he was in high school (30 years earlier).
 
My wife (long before she became my wife) dated my sophmore year roomate. She didn't go to wake. I spoke to her on the phone at least once (just taking a message) and didn't meet her until 7 years later.
 
RTQ mentioning australia reminded me of one more (geez i have a lot of these):

i spent the summer after my 5th year (accounting), before i started work, hiking in australia with NOLS. one of the people before the trip set up a fb group so we could all get to know each other beforehand. one day there's a new guy, so i click on his name, expecting to only find out what networks he's in, etc, the basic public info. but it takes me to his full profile. i got confused and scrolled down the page to find out why, turns out he went to wake, was one year below me, and was also an accounting major.

he's now a good friend of mine, and his younger sister is my roommate.
 
Ok, here are mine:

In disney world, we ran into my little brother's first grade teacher in a switch-back in line for Thunder Mountain Railroad.

My boyfriend took a climbing course a few years ago in Asheville. We've since run into his guide at the REI in Asheville (not too shocking), on a random ice climb in a remote climbing area of New Hampshire two years ago, and then again in New Hampshire this year on the beer isle of an off-the-beaten-path grocery store.

Ran into... can't remember his poster name, but R.D. (initials... 'the boards' funded his trip back to the Orange Bowl) on the steps of the British Museum while studying abroad.

While studying abroad, I made friends with a couple guys from another school who were also studying abroad in Salamanca. They were going on their two week fall break, just traveling around on eurorail passes. Didn't have a real plan when they set out, just figured I'd see them when they got back. During that time, I went to Interlaken, Switzerland. While walking back to my hostel the second night in town, I was taking a shortcut through a neighborhood back road and I saw the silhouette of two people approaching. I was going to put my head down and just keep trucking (I was walking alone), until I hear my name. It was those guys from Salamanca... so random.

I went to Rome by myself, and while touring around had a decent conversation with an older couple in St. Peter's. We spoke for a while, then parted ways. Later on that evening, I was across town and wanted to get to the spanish steps to walk around and get some dinner. I made a last-second decision to take the metro, and just barely squeezed onto a very crowded car before the doors closed. I found myself pressed up against the gentleman and his wife again. Couldn't believe it. They invited me to eat with them and I declined... to this day I still wish I'd eaten with them.

(last one) At Wake, I was filtering into Benson for some presentation and I hear my name. Looked up and see a girl who I'd been decent friends with in elementary school/middle school before her family moved to Georgia. Overall I guess it's not that random that she ended up at Wake, but I definitely didn't expect to see her.
 
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