BYJOHN JAWORSKI
How many times have you travelled to another city, another
province or another country? Then you see a familiar face or
meet someone from your hometown.
On a recent trip, my wife and I flew to Budapest. We boarded the River Empress riverboat for a trip up the Danube and Rhine. We were sailing from Budapest to Amsterdam with stops in Vienna, Melk, Passau, Regenberg, Bambjerg, Rothenberg, Nuremberg and Cologne. Our tour guide was showing us the sights in Vienna. All of a sudden we heard a commotion and laughter.
Dennis and Anita St. Jean from Livermore, California, who
were with our group, were crossing a courtyard when Dennis
meets  his mother, Betty St. Jean, who lives in Nanaimo,
B.C. She was on another river boat cruise from Prague to the
Black Sea with another tour group. There was a lot of laughter
and hugging. One family from B.C. and the other from California
meet face to face in Vienna. Each was unaware of the other's
scheduled vacation.
It's a small, small world.
In Nuremberg, our bus took us to the Zepplin Parade Grounds. I was wearing my Canadian cap. Our tour guide asked me what part of Canada I was from. I told her I was Sudbury, Ont.
Our tour guide, Dr. Cladia Wunderich, told me that in 1990
she was at Science North in Sudbury. She was attending school
in Cornwall, on a student exchange.
The school she was attending came up for a day to Sudbury to
visit Science North. She remarked that she enjoyed herself and
that it left an impression on her.
It's a small, small world.
John Jaworski is a Sudbury writer.
