My parents, from Northwestern Ontario, went on a European vacation in the summer of 2008. In Bruges, Belgium, on a beer tour, they met, sat with, and shared a beer with a couple. It was a pleasant evening, but as my dad said at the end, “Nice to meet you. See you never, right?”

The couple knew my parents were from Canada, but they never got around to saying where they were from — they mostly focused on their respective trips so far. Dad and Mom weren’t especially excited or annoyed to meet fellow Canadians. It was just a nice coincidence.

Five months later, in October, my dad was in Collingswood, Ontario, attending a friend’s wedding before driving to visit me in Southeastern Ontario. Suddenly, from across the room, he hears:

“You! I know you! I had a beer with you in Belgium!”

It was the same woman — from the Bruges beer tour — with her husband. They talked for a while, marveled at the odds, and said their goodbyes again. See you “later.”

A couple of weeks after that, Dad came to my city. We went out to dinner at Montana’s… and he ran into the same couple from Belgium — for the third time.

It turns out they live just 45 minutes from where I did (and still do). We all ate together. Dad and the couple exchanged addresses and phone numbers, laughing about “just in case one of us is ever in the neighborhood.”

Dad looked at me and said, “Small world, I know… but this is small.”