Familiar Faces in Faraway Places

Several times. But that tends to happen when you have a husband who spent 37 years in the military. Just last month we bumped into old friends in the National Gallery in London. Had a lovely afternoon tea while we caught up .

We have met up with friends who happened to be in the same place we were. My husband had posted pictures on Instagram and his friends saw them. It's a small world, after all.

I just ran into a neighbor from way back when I was living in London!! It was fun to compare memories from our younger days :-)

I was spending a few days by myself in Amsterdam in the Spring of 2023 prior to starting a bus tour of Holland, Luxembourg and Belgium when I heard my name called as I walked up the stairs at the Rijksmuseum. Turns out it was an acquaintance from my gym who lives about two blocks from me. We had a nice chat, became Facebook friends and now every time we see each other we talk travel. How fun!

In 1990, we were in the market of a Turkish coastal town. Suddenly, we chanced across an old Montreal friend of my wife's also shopping there. It felt uncanny.
But I've got 'better.'
Nothing compares to the time in East Berlin when I chanced across the local conman who'd once taken my mother for a lot of money just a year earlier in Toronto. That was utterly bizarre. It was New Years Day and I was then working on a front-page story about the fall of the Berlin Wall for a local newspaper. I was standing outside in a restaurant line-up, when I suddenly noticed that man directly in front of me waiting with his actual wife. It took fully five minutes for my hands to stop shaking from the shocked emotion, before I could tap his shoulder (imagine his surprise!!!) then thrust my tape recorder into his hand with the demand that he leave a message for my devastated mother.

The pinch marks are still there.
I am done. the sense of humour of God

And also familiar: 'Josh' from the West Wing Tv series (actor Bradley Whitford) was on our Spanish flight back in September.
I am done. the ageing faces

How awesome! I ran into my local city bus driver in the St. Louis airport, which was super random and also took me a half tick to figure out who he was completely out of context. A friend and I also ran in to a not-that-much-beloved work colleague on a random street in London. We had known he would be in the city at the same time but were shocked to actually cross paths with him.

1993
Monte Verde, Costa Rica. Pouring jungle rain outside. Nighttime. Cozy in our Quaker guesthouse. Talking with others. No alcohol in Quaker House, but I have a car. A run into town for beer seems appropriate. Head down the dirt driveway to main road. A bus stops and people get out.
I call out to them that this place is full. No more rooms. So they can get back on the bus.
A voice from the darkness calls my name. What?
There she is as I roll down my window. My first love. Last seen in 1975. She with her husband, me with my girlfriend.
Pouring rain running into puddles. Darkness, but now the quick light of a smile.

On a flight from DFW to Paris to celebrate my 40th birthday, my husband ran into a work colleague on the plane. And a few years later, my daughter and I were at the top of the Eiffel Tower when we heard our names called. It was the parents of one of her elementary school friends from Texas. They had moved out of state and we were living in Arizona and our daughters were now in high school. Small world!

Ran into our next door neighbors in the Louvre - odd thing is neither of us knew the others were going to Europe, much less to Paris...not nearly as interesting an anecdote at least in terms of the place as the one that started this thread, though.

Sitting at Amorino on Rue Cler last year with a friend having gelato and someone walks by, does a double take and says "Pam??". Yep, someone I'd worked with before I retired 13 years before who's name is also Pam, lol. Neither of us had any idea the other was going to be in Paris.

Our family was visiting a traditional Korean folk village near Seoul, and I started chatting with a group of Marines from Camp Pendleton…their lieutenant was the son of my husband’s childhood friend…we sent a photo to his parents!

A few times:
Someone that lived in my neighborhood when stationed in southern Italy. Sitting about 3 rows behind me & my family at the Universal Studios Stunt Show in California, someone yells out my last name and its my neighbor with his family.

Standing on the flight line in Peru waiting to see a patient coming off a military aircraft and someone yells out my Call Sign from a previous mission and country. A former patient of mine was there waiting on his aircraft to get refueled.

Walking down one of the canyon trails in Bryce Canyon with my friend, we ran into nurse we knew walking up the trail with her family.

One of my Docs that I worked with throughout my military career and had not seen in 14 years was a day ahead of me throughout a vacation in Italy, through Rome, Florence, Pisa, and Venice. We were posting on Facebook at the same time and noticed all the Italy pics. Never caught up with him, but spoke on the phone.

First trip to Italy, arriving in Rome tired since we can never manage to sleep on the plane. We dropped our luggage off at our hotel and got on the metro to Termini. I had read all about the pickpockets in Rome and since I had my wallet stolen on the metro in Paris two years before I was hyper vigilant and probably a touch paranoid. As I was getting ready to step off the train a man grabbed my arm. My husband was just behind me and was getting ready to take physical action when the man said my name. It was someone I had worked with some years earlier and he was there with his family. The strange thing is we lived in the same smallish suburban community, his child went to the same high school mine went to and in 24 years of living there we never once ran into each other at the school, store, gas station, etc.

Wow! Such great - and unique - stories! I'm so glad I asked the question.

Walking back from dinner in Venice one night we ran into a guy we knew from the gym we use. He was with an attractive lady that was not his wife nor daughter. He seemed taken aback and didn't introduce us, so we just assumed it was a niece or cousin.

We ran into a neighbor (who lives 100 yards away) in the Atlanta airport. We were all heading to Florida for cruises but didn't know about each other's trip.

We were from a small town (pop. 20,000) in Colorado. We ran into people we knew from there in both Rome and Aix-en-Provence. But the best was in a restaurant in Venice. We figured out we were sitting next to the owners of our favorite Italian restaurant in the closest "big" town to ours (pop. 65,000). Nice to know we had chosen a good restaurant!

Forgot (geez, we wonder why? - editors) about the March Break when we were in a Toronto airport departure lounge when a knock to catch our attention came on the transparent plastic wall right behind us. My boss/school principal had knocked, as he himself made his way to another departure gate along with his wife. Neither couple had been aware of the other's travel plans.
That boss and I did not get along.

But still at that moment, there were the sudden, phony smiles as though we were old mates.
As if...
I am done. the cringeworthy

I was in Orvieto, Italy, with some longtime girlfriends, eating at a tiny café where you basically need to share a table with strangers. My friends got to talking with the people at the table and realized they were friends of their dad! We all took pictures and called Daddy the next day to tell him about it!

Walking back from dinner in Venice one night

Venice must be the place. I saw someone on a Venice Vaporetto that I had previously worked with. She immediately turned around obviously avoiding my attention from the other side of the boat until they could get off at the next stop. She was an extreme extrovert so it seemed out of character until I recognized the man she was with- married and not to her. Funny thing is there had always been a rumor that she had a penchant for dating married men.