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I was once in the middle of the airport in Geneva, Switzerland, when I ran into a former classmate of mine. She was selling beauty products behind a counter in the shopping area near the departure gates. Turns out she'd fallen in love with someone, married him, and was now living her best life as a Swiss citizen. It was quite the surprise!
After Redditor Dunham1409 asked the online community, "Where was the most unexpected place you ran into someone you knew?" people reminded us that the world is so much smaller than we think.
"One weekend we took a long road trip..."
I was at an interim research camp in the month before college after my senior year. One weekend we took a long road trip to South Dakota for the Black Hills Region, we were to see all the monuments and caves. As we sat down for a dinner at the Mount Rushmore Brewing Company, an older man with a ball gut and dishelved hair and gold rimmed glasses came up, smiling. Our chaperone was concerned, but I was not. It was my Ecology and Geology teacher from high school. He had been there for the last two months collecting rocks. It's a logical place for him to be, but never did i expect to see him after I had graduated.
"I went to band camp as a teen..."
I have the best story for this. I went to band camp as a teen, didn't know anyone there. At one of the socializing activities I struck up a conversation with a girl who I overheard discussing a book series I liked. I learned she was visiting the states from Indonesia, though her parents were originally from the US. We got to talking, and I asked her if she was on a certain fanfiction website that I hung out on and wrote for. She replied that she was, and asked what my username was. I'll never forget the moment I told her. Her jaw literally dropped. We knew each other from the website. We had read and reviewed each other's stories. And even though she lived halfway around the world, we happened to run into each other at band camp in the Midwest. We're still friends to this day, and it's the best "small world" story ever.
"I was studying abroad..."
I was studying abroad in Florence, Italy one summer and me and a couple of people in my program went to a gelateria after our lecture. I'm standing in front of the display trying to decide which gelato to choose and a friend from my home university walks in. We instantly greeted each other almost as if we'd expected to meet there.
Turns out she was finishing a stint as an au pair in Sweden was and doing some solo travel through Europe, and as fate would have it we crossed paths. We met up later and had the best time bar hopping through Florence.
"I was traveling around Europe..."
I'm Aussie, I was traveling around Europe and in Amsterdam I was getting fried at Grasshopper and ran into a high school friend I hadn't spoken to in years.
"I ran into my high school friend's parents..."
I'm from Upstate New York. I ran into my high school friend's parents in the garden next to Himeji Castle in Japan.
"Ran into a college classmate..."
American here. Ran into a college classmate on a Tokyo train platform.
"My date had no idea..."
I was on a first date. We were walking to our table when I heard my name called, I stopped and there was my sister at a table full of her friends. My date had no idea she was my sister, just looked back to see I've stopped to talk to a table full of girls. While we were eating dinner my sister stopped off at our table to drop off a coupon which was great and not embarrassing at all. We've been married now for eleven years.
I went to a conference in Austin, TX. They had us set up in a hotel, catered lunches, pretty cool time. At one point, I noticed that one of the guys setting up the catering looked kinda familiar, and I realized it was a guy I knew from high school (for reference, we went to school in Iowa). I was in a hurry so I didn't get a chance to say hello just then, but I ended up messaging him a bit later to confirm it was him, and we went and got a couple beers later that evening. It was crazy - what are the odds that we'd happen to not only be in the same city but that we'd happen to run into each other on the same day in the same hotel?
"It was so strange..."
Tianjin, China.
I used to live in China and when I took a day trip to Tianjin's downtown, I was stunned to run into a guy I knew from Michigan. It was so strange.
"We both grew up..."
In New Zealand. We both grew up in the Midwest but had lost touch. I ran into him completely unexpectedly only a day after arriving in the country.
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