<\/p>\n
While in Europe one summer, I decided at the last minute to take a train from Zurich, Switzerland to Fussen, Germany to do some sightseeing before heading to Frankfurt for some business meetings.\u00a0\u00a0 A friend had recommended that I visit the famous castle, Neuschwantein, so I decided to<\/span><\/span> detour my plans for a weekend there.\u00a0 As the train was getting ready to pull into Fussen station, I started a conversation with a guy standing by the door holding a bike helmet, asking where he was from and he said, \u201cIowa.\u201d\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n I said, \u201cMe too, where in Iowa?\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n \u201cDes Moines,\u201d he said with some surprise I replied, \u00a0\u201cMe too!\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n It turned out he was visiting Fussen for the long holiday weekend and had been there a few times before and gave me all sorts of great advice on what to see and do.\u00a0\u00a0 Ironically, a fellow Iowan was giving me advice about a small town in Germany!<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n However, the coincidences didn\u2019t end there!\u00a0 After we got off the train, he mentioned that he worked for Principal Financial Group in Des Moines.\u00a0 I told him that both my mom and husband did, too! Out of a company of thousands of people, I decided to throw out my husband\u2019s name just in case he might know him.\u00a0 Not only did he know my husband but he also worked in the same department\u2014he was a co-worker!\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n The following week, back in Des Moines, he bumped into my husband at work and said, \u201cBy the way, I ran into your wife in Fussen, Germany last week.\u201d\u00a0 You can imagine my husband\u2019s surprise!<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n But<\/span><\/span><\/i>, there is still more to this story.\u00a0\u00a0 After I learned that he worked at Principal and knew my husband, I asked him if he knew a woman named Barb who also worked in the same area.\u00a0 Coincidentally, he had a conference call with her that night.\u00a0 I told him to tell her, \u201chi\u201d from me from Germany.\u00a0 The amazing thing is that Barb and I had met when I\u2019d moved to Australia for the second time and she had later introduced me to my future husband\u2014a fellow Iowan\u2014who\u2019d just moved there!\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" While in Europe one summer, I decided at the last minute to take a train from Zurich, Switzerland to Fussen, Germany to do some sightseeing before heading to Frankfurt for some business meetings.\u00a0\u00a0 A friend had recommended that I visit<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-336","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-funny-crazy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/smallworldstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/336","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/smallworldstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/smallworldstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/smallworldstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/smallworldstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=336"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/smallworldstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/336\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/smallworldstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=336"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/smallworldstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=336"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/smallworldstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=336"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}