Have you ever been thousands of miles away from home when you unexpectedly ran into someone you knew or who even lived in the same town you lived in?

I had that experience in Portugal recently. My encounters were truly astonishing. They all happened within a few days and were completely random. Here are my three (yes, three!) incidents.

UNEXPECTED ENCOUNTER #1: I was sitting on a bench in a train station in Porto waiting for a train back to Lisbon. My wife was taking a short walk on the platform. Next to me was a couple about our age, waiting for the same train. We started chatting about when the train was due and what car our seats were in. I asked the woman where they were from. She said Edinburgh, Scotland, but added that she had lived in the United States for a few years as a child. I asked her where. She said, “Portland, Oregon.” I said that was my hometown. She said she had actually lived in a small city outside Portland. I asked where. “Lake Oswego,” she said. My jaw dropped. “That’s where I grew up,” I told her. I asked where she had lived. She said near Our Lady of the Lake, a Catholic school that was literally four blocks from my house. She was in the 3rd and 4th grades there. I was in the public grade school, Forest Hills Elementary, just a few blocks away. She was 74 and I am 77, so we were there at the same time. My mother was a librarian, and this woman said she spent lots of time at the library. So our paths had almost certainly crossed as children. We chatted some more on the train, exchanged Facebook addresses and have stayed in touch.

UNEXPECTED ENCOUNTER #2: That same evening, back in Lisbon, my wife and I walked to a restaurant near our hotel for dinner. As we approached the front door, I noticed a man alone also heading for the restaurant. He went in just ahead of us, and the waitress seated him at a table by himself. Then she seated us in the same room. When I picked up the wine list and began reading it over, he turned to us and said, “Would you like to share a bottle of wine rather than ordering by the glass?” We said that would be great. I asked if he wanted to join us at our table, since he was alone. He said yes and came over to sit with us. I asked where he was from. “Portland, Oregon,” he replied. “Me, too,” I said. He added that he had actually lived in Lake Oswego for a while as a boy. I asked him where. He said 3rd Street. I had lived on 4th Street. We weren’t in school at the same time, but this was still astonishing. I told him about the woman I had met on the train to Lisbon. We had a great dinner together and found we knew many people in common in the Portland area.

UNEXPECTED ENCOUNTER #3: Three days later, while having breakfast at our Lisbon hotel, I was perusing my copy of Rick Steves’ “Guide to Portugal” when a woman approached me and asked if I was on his group tour. I said no, but I liked his guidebooks. She said she and her husband, who was sitting nearby, did too. I asked where they were from. “Beaverton, Oregon,” she said — but her husband had graduated from Lake Oswego High School, class of 1975. I was class of 1964. He had lived on a street that I knew and we had some friends in common. He also had gone to Lady of the Lake School, which the woman from Edinburgh had attended.

I know it’s a small world, but this was getting bizarre. To meet one person from your relatively small hometown is unusual enough, but to meet three within a few days, all separately and randomly? That’s pretty crazy.

Maybe it suggests, as some friends have told me, that God indeed works in mysterious ways. There are no coincidences in life. Everything happens for a reason. My friend and fellow Mercer Island Reporter columnist Greg Asimakoupoulos calls them “Godwinks.” I think that’s a terrific term.

How about you? Any unexpected encounters in your travels? If so, write a letter to the editor of the Mercer Island Reporter and/or email me. If anyone can top these three stories, we can share a bottle of Portuguese wine. If you’re from Lake Oswego, all the better!

FOOTNOTE: Why were we in Portugal? To attend the wedding of our good friends Bruno Fiorentini and Kayla Cayton, who have lived on Mercer Island for several years — as have the groom’s Italian-American father and Brazilian-American mother. Family and friends from all over the world flew in to celebrate the marriage. Small world, isn’t it?

John Hamer is a retired editorial writer and columnist for The Seattle Times who now lives on Mercer Island with his wife. He posts frequently on Facebook, where you’ll find photos of his three encounters. Email: jhamer46@gmail.com.