S, M, L or XL?

During a layover at a train station in Switzerland, a girl with a strong southern accent asked me for the time. She was lugging a large camera bag. We soon discovered, not only did we share alma maters, we'd taken photography from the same art professor.

On a bus heading to Marrakesh, a man wearing a light blue Charlotte Hornets cap boarded the bus. My college is located twenty minutes south of Charlotte.

At a hostel in Budapest, I met a guy from my hometown whose brother's band played at some parties I'd been to in high school. His good friend Lia was a college R.A. of mine.

In an Italian hilltown, Civita, my friend Kat and I befriended two fellow Americans. One lived twenty minutes away from my cousin in Minneapolis. Days later, I checked into a hostel and saw the two lounging in the lobby. Now five years later, I live twenty minutes away from my cousin and the new (now old) friend.

When my parents were visiting from S.C., my dad bumped into a friend and fellow golfer at the Mall of America who was visiting Minnesota on business. Later that day, we saw him at a Korean restaurant in Saint Paul.

Today, I discovered that two Friendsters, who live states away and have never met (at least to my knowledge), are connected by three degrees each from the very same person.

It's a small world after all.