In Reply to: I definitely believe in a sixth sense.. posted by jo on September 23, 2003 at 20:48:06:
Back in the late 90's, I had decided to travel Europe for 3 weeks. I bought a 1-way ticket to a east European city, and a return from a west European city. I had no idea how I'd get between the 2 cities, where I'd be, or anything. I was just going to play it by ear.
So in the 1st city where I landed, I partied and partied. A few days later I thought it was time to go, so I asked around about train tckets, but they all seemed to be fully booked. Then someone said he could sell me a stolen ticket from the railway system of a neighboring country (not stolen from a person, but the railway) and because I really needed to leave, I agreed to buy it.
The great thing was I got to fill whatever I wanted on the ticket, no only the final destination, the western European city I planned to fly home from. I could ask the seller to fill in as many destinations in between as I wanted. So he asked me where I wanted to go, and I named 3 cities I would like to visit on the way to my final destination (where I'd fly home from). That made it a total of 5 cities I'd visit in 3 weeks. I was thrilled! The trip was really magical, with lots of crazy, far out things happening left and right. Too much to tell. I had a blast, that's for sure!
Well, when I got home, my fridge was empty, so I decided to do a monster grocery shopping. I had about 2 supermarket trolleys full of stuff, which I packed into about 10 grocery bags. Now I didn't have a car at the time, so I went to the corner to get a taxi. The problem is, there were no taxis that day. Calling for one didn't help, there simply were none available.
Now I didn't really live that far away, just 500 yards away, but I couldn't carry 10 heavy grocery bags by myself.
So there I was standing in the hot sun, watching my frozen goods melt, when I saw this strange looking taxi stop right before me. A man got out, so I immediately asked the driver if I could get in. He said yes, and told me I was really lucky to get a cab that day. He said he'd seen lines of people at every taxi stand he drove by. He also told me that he had come from another city 800 miles away.
That's why I thought the taxi looked strange.
The previous client had paid return fare, for him to drive to where I was, in other words, whatever the meter showed, he paid double. Crazy, huh?
So I sat in the front seat beside the driver, and he saw my small day pack with souvenir patches of the cities I'd visited sewn on it. I'd developed a habit of having it with me, and this was my first day home, and I had brought it along, shopping. So he looked at the souvenir patches and asked if I'd just come home from traveling and I'd been to these cities, and I said yes, and named the cities and the order I'd been to them.
He rubbed his chin and said "hmmm, that's rather strange, because exactly 10 years ago, the same month, I had been to the exact same destinations, in the same order.
He told me how he had gone on a caravaning trip with 4 other families, each fammily in a car and pulling a caravan behind. His little convoy went to all the same cities I had been, in the same order. He talked nostalgically about the trip, and how he had this really workhorse blue Volvo that could not only fit his wife and kids but pull his caravan along. He said he missed his good old Volvo, because he had sold it to an African man from another city 1200 miles south.
Next thing you know, a blue Volvo with an African man drives by, with the license plates of that very city to the south, and the taxi driver goes wild saying "It's him! It's him! that's my car!!!" honking his horn wildly. He overtakes the Volvo, and waves at the African man, who after a second or 2 or surprize, recognizes the taxi driver and waves back with a nod and smile. The man points to the steering wheel and gestures that the car is working just great.
Now, all this came together in the space of a 500 yard taxi ride:
1. Me, fresh home from traveling
2. A taxi and driver from another city 800 miles who drops a client in front of me.
3. The driver who's been to the same unusual combination of cities, the same month 10 years before.
4. His old car and the man who bought it from another city 1200 miles away.
So was all this a coincidence? Well I don't believ in coincidences, but I was so thrilled with the story I went around telling it everybody, and saying that as much as I believe in the unusual, this probably had nothing more than entertainment value attached to it.
That is, until I told it to another taxi driver one day, who said, "no it's not just entertainment! I'll tell you why it happened to you. It happened so you would tell me your story, so I would end up telling you mine"
........ to be continued .......