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It’s a small world!

It’s a small world!

You hear the phrase “it’s a small world” thrown around a lot. From the experiences we’ve had of seeing friends and acquaintances in the places you least expect, it’s gives you a pretty surreal feeling when you have one of these moments – a feeling that is enhanced the further you are away from home.

But what about randomly discovering about a new relative via the internet, specifically via this blog and our post A Filipino Wedding in Photos? Well that’s what happened to me this week when I discovered that Cristine, the solo traveling Filipina behind Wander to Wonder, is actually related to me!

The Discovery

On Tuesday afternoon I posted the Filipino Wedding link to our Twitter followers. Minutes later, the following tweet appeared in our timeline:

Cristinas Tweet to Us

Small world indeed!

After a conversation with Cristine on Twitter and a phone call to my mother, it turned out that Cristine’s mom Amalia was actually one of the 100 guests that attended my parents wedding in the Philippines and that she placed the wedding cord over my parents during their ceremony! In addition to that, my mom has a close relationship with Amalia who is in fact her first cousin, meaning that Cristine and I are second cousins and share the same great grandparents!

My parents and Cristinas Mom

My parents and Cristina's Mom (in blue) at the wedding!

You might assume that it’s normal for extended family to be reading our blog, but none of our family members actually knew about this site (well, until now that is!). Although our parents and close friends do know about our travel plans, we were keeping Don’t Ever Look Back a secret until our resignation notices were handed in to avoid too much information leaking out into our personal networks.

What are the chances?

It’s still quite unbelievable that Cristine managed to find me through the internet! Take these numbers/facts into consideration:

  • The population of Surigao del Norte (the province where the wedding was held and where our mom’s grew up) is approximately 400,000.
  • It might be an assumption, but not too many of those people would know someone who is traveling long-term.
  • Only 100 friends and family attended my parents wedding.
  • The tweet went out to 1,000 of our Twitter followers, of which less than 10 would have clicked through to the post.

When you take all of those numbers into account, the odds of finding a second cousin via Twitter and the Internet are minuscule! But that’s exactly what happened!

It’s fantastic to have discovered that I have a relative that shares the same passion for traveling that I do and both Amy & I are looking forward to meeting Cristine at some point during our round-the-world adventure, most likely in the Philippines!

When have you thought “it’s a small world”? Share your experiences in the comments!

Flickr Photo: stevecadman

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