To ask Strangest Place you have bumped into someone you know?

[TomLee475]

I was in Germany recently and bumped into someone I used to work with in India.

This year on holiday in Spain. Day 1 at the pool and I met a guy from my office staying in the same hotel with his family!

I was in Tianjin, northern China, at a conference in 2013, and ran into a woman I'd met on a school exchange in Reykjavik in 1996.

Decades ago when I was a student in Edinburgh my boyfriend of the time and I used to walk past a "bag lady" (as we called homeless women back then) every day. She would be sitting on a bench beside the Greyfriars Bobby statue. She was always quite smart, lipstick, neat hair, but with a shopping trolley full of bags of her belongings. We saw her so often that we would say hello or smile as we went past.

One weekend we went to York for a break. In York Minster we met "our" bag lady. Smiled and said hello. Very strange we thought. It got stranger.

Months later, he had gone travelling, horrible parting etc. We met in London as he passed through on his way to his home country. Very emotional few days, probably parting for ever. We were walking through Belgravia, and who did we see walking towards us but our bag lady, looking smart and not homeless, no trolley. She smiled as usual as she passed. I've always wondered what her story was.

My husband meeting his former RE teacher in a remote rainforest resort (only accessible by tiny plane and boat) in Queensland,Australia.

In my first week at uni I realised that my new lab partner was a girl I met on holiday when I was 10! My mum dug our a photo of us pony trekking together 👍

On my gap year, was in Cairns, and I bumped into someone I knew from home walking down the street. I knew he was on a gap year too and had been in Australia, but not where he was. We have been together ever since - 21 years, married 10 years, 3 kids 😁

I legoland Denmark I met the lady who ran the Dc's preschool, they were very impressed to meet "Miss" there.

Camping on the banks of the Rhine in Germany and met the lady who owned our local greengrocers.

Holidaying in Spain with the family and the lady I used to work closely with 10 years previously was on the next sunbed.

A former boss across the aisle on a flight to Majorca. Thankfully we weren't in the same resort or that would have been really weird.

Met a family we had talked to on holiday 7 years previously at the airport on way to a holiday. And then at the pool the next day they were there at the same hotel. Hadn't seen them on the transfer. Was a brilliant holiday as we all hooked up again.

On a bus to car park at Gatwick after a holiday I met a school friend from 10 years earlier who I hadn't seen since I left that school to move to a different town

Seems to be holidays with me!

Love these stories. My best friend from school in a small Yorkshire town, is now best friends with someone in London who was a member of a small private internet forum I used to post on. I used to banter with this woman, only really knew her from her username and photo... my best mate moved to London years later and they met randomly. Didn't find out for years.. London has millions of people!

In a queue for a flight in Bangkok airport, bumped into a guy I went to uni with 😀

Met our next door neighbours in a bar in sri Lanka

Met dh's colleage in a queue for alcatraz in san fran

got friendly with a couole on a ski holiday. Two years later met them at another ski resort, again in aame hotel. Luckily they were lovely!

In the operating theatre just as I was about to go under I noticed one of the nurses was my parents next door neighbour who I used to play with as a child. We were both in completely different part of the could try to where we grew up. No one believed me when I came round until she came to visit me after her shift had finished

I went for an abortion 13 years ago, the father of my baby was my then abusive boyfriend.

Anyway I bumped into my cousin who was also there to get an abortion and we both agreed to not tell any of the family, and neither of us ever did, we also share a surname and it’s not a common one so who knows what the nurses thought when we got called out and we were sitting next to one another with same surnames!

As a teen - met some French teens on holiday in Florida and bumped into them the following year in a mall in Lyon in France.

in thailand I met a couple I worked with years ago-so random. I didn't even know they were going on holiday as we were not that close.

Bumped into my old next door neighbour from home in a bar in central London, we are from a small village 100s of miles from London.

Bumped into a second cousn in Spain on a school trip back when I was 14, she was on one too, she lved over 200 miles from me and we saw each other at family reunions as kids but were not close.

I had always had a connection with my first love when I was 17. We had never quite managed to break it off for the next ten years and I always thought we'd end up together. Both of us saw other people but always ended up meeting up every 6 months or so. The last time we met up he told me he had met someone through who he was serious about and they were going to travel the world for 18 months. I had just met someone too but I was still Incredibly sad that we were over for good and we were no longer in touch after that..
12 months later I was in a museum in Vietnam (I was on a 2 week holiday with friends and bf ) and I saw them both.

My legs turned to jelly as I realised I loved him more than I loved my bf but he was there with his gf. I went over and said hi but it was hard. A week later my bf proposed and I said yes. I still believe that was the sign I was sent to finally get first love out of my head and to tell me that was us done for good.
My marriage didn't last but I see him on FB that his did. I'm happy for him but still think about him now and how things may have worked out!

Met a couple in China. Two years later, I bumped into them at the Taj Mahal

On a beach in the Gili Islands near Bali when backpacking, a girl from my school who it turned out was then going to go to the same university as me.

I live in wales. Whilst waiting to get into a nightclub in London, found out the group
In front were from a town 3 miles to the south of me, and the two boys behind form a town 5 miles to the North of me. I live in a rural area. So that was bizarre.

The giants causeway in NI..my best friend from school! I was 30 and over to attend a wedding, was lovely to catch up over dinner! She was on holiday!

I was parked on double yellow lines as OH dashed into somewhere, a yound copper knocked on the window, I thought Oh shit. He asked what part of Germany we lived, we had distinctive number plates in those days. Turned out that he had been brought up in the same town, his mother worked in the same school as OH, his sister baby sat for our friends and until two weeks previous he had been collecting our bulk rubbish! Eventually I said 'Are you going to book me' and the older copper with him said No, he's been chatting to everyone with these number plates since he joined!
Natually first day back him mother interrogated OH, did he look happy, did he look like he was eating, did he look homesick...
Small world.

On holiday and bumped into a load of pupils on a summer camp outing almost 350 miles from where I teach. Very funny and a nice surprise.

Me: nothing
My brother: saw one of cousins in a bar in Vancouver!

@Lemonsaretheonlyfruit maybe it was a sign to say you don’t love your boyfriend enough to marry him!

An old colleague on the post natal ward after having my second. The boys were born on the same day.

Last year we were at Legoland and we suddenly spotted a boy from my eldests class that he gets on well with. It wasn't an open to the public day, it was for employees of the company that my husband works for. It's a massive company so my husband didn't know the parent that also works there.

Each year when we go on holiday, I seem to get chatting to someone who knows the town that I live in now. Turkey 2006, my scuba instructor used to live there and her children and I took our driving tests at the same centre. France 2017, I ended up chatting to a guy whilst stood in the man made lagoon of our Eurocamp park with the kids about the merits of our excellent local park. His sister lives here. And Netherlands last year, another Eurocamp site, the man in the next caravan also has a sister that lives here. It's not actually that big of a town and I'd never heard of it until we moved intially to the outskirts.

Oh, a girl who's blog I used to follow and comment on regularly when we used the same blogging site many many many moons ago, lived in Newcastle. She and her partner then relocated and moved to the town I live in. I see her around all the time now.