It's A Small World

I know you are probably looking to read something about my trip to Spain here, but I'm doing the “Slow Travel” thing, so I'm not up to writing about Spain yet. I've only been here a couple of days and we have been busy finding our way around the town.

One of the greatest experiences while travelling is to meet up with someone from home in a foreign local. I find it really amazing that you can find someone when you are both thousands of miles from home. You can plan it, organize it, even hope it works, but it is such a feeling when the person you know suddenly comes into sight in another country, another time zone, or another continent.

We have accomplished this a number of times, and it always feels great. We are especially good at it with my dad. The first time was in Knoxville Tenn. When my mom & dad were circumnavigating North America in their camper van. We decided to meet up with them in Tennessee, visit Dollywood and tour the Eastern US on the way home with them. We had a little Boler trailer at the time, and towed it down through the New England states and across to Tennessee. Dad had arranged to meet at a campground outside Pigeon Forge & Knoxville, and we had good directions, finding it with no difficulty. When we checked in, we were told that, yes, indeed Mr. & Mrs. Hill were there and we were given the campsite next to them. Although they were gone when we arrived it was thrilling to pull in and recognize their “Stuff” in the next site.

The next time was in Rome when we met Dad and his wife to take a 21 day four continent transatlantic  cruise.  We had come from a week with friends in Egypt and they had come directly from home. We arrived at the hotel and received a message that they had gone to eat. We walked down the street in the direction indicated by the hotel desk clerk, and there they were walking up the other side of the boulevard.

The next year we did it again in England. Dad & Sharon had been in England for a week, and we flew in, took a train from London to Hilberton. They drove from Wales and met us only 20 minutes late. Then the next day we met my sister and her husband who had come from another part of England with his parents so we could all spend a week on a canal boat to Bristol. It was quite the feeling to all come together within 15 minutes from all over England.

This year, we are renting an apartment in Spain for a month, and our friends from Egypt were in Barcelona and decided to come spent a couple of days with us in El Campello. The apartment is in the old part of town at the end of a little narrow one way street, so although we had given them good instructions it was such a nice feeling to see their familiar faces waving from the rental car as they saw us waiting on the balcony.

It really is a heart warming experience and truly shows how small our world really is. I suggest you try it some time.