Thumbnail: American traveler arrives late at Swiss youth hostel in Brienz, is locked out and only staves off hypothermia by taking refuge in a fire-station lavatory and stuffing himself with toilet paper.

Thumbnail: American traveler meets troupe of Irishmen in Monkstown on his birthday and upon tipping a few pints of Guinness everyone discovers they are headed to the same distant conference on spirituality and psychology.

Thumbnail: Author arrives at empty archaic hotel and is told by surly manager that he is too late. With no other options available, he hides out in the hotel lavatory for the night but must dodge the manager and a nosey old hound.

Full Story:...About 1970, my parents went to see the sunrise over Everest. This wasn't easy to do:first, they had to first get to Kathmandu, which wasn't easy at the time, and then they had to take a four-seater plane 150 miles west to a small lodge with an overlook from which one could get a good view of the sunrise. The puddle-jumper arrived after dark, and there was nothing to do there, so they went to bed. They rose at the crack of dawn, dressed, and headed for the overlook. There was one other couple there already waiting for the sunrise. It was the niece of their next-door neighbor from Brooklyn, on her honeymoon.

Full Story:...It was summer of 1966 and I was 18 at the time, hitchhiking around England. I would arrive in each town and seek out a cheap guest house (B&B), which typically cost about £1 or a little less for the bed and greasy eggs and sausage for breakfast. In Cambridge, that meant lodging near the station, about a mile from the town centre. I walked into town to find an Indian or Chinese restaurant for dinner, my usual reliable choice on that trip. Then I walked back toward the guest house. As I rounded the corner of a building, I literally bumped into my cousin, who was rounding it in the other direction. This surprised her a lot more than it did me, because while I knew she was studying at Cambridge, she had no idea I was in England. We went back to her rooms, where we talked until 1 or 2 in the morning.

Full Story: ...In 1974 my Radcliffe roommate Lucy and I traveled together on the west coast. We spent several weeks rambling around from San Francisco to Oregon. We parted ways in Seattle when I took off with some other friends and she went to Vancouver to visit someone she knew (an emigre there to avoid the draft). I ended up going to Vancouver as well with my friends. I thought of calling the youth hostel (though we had not talked about her staying there) to see if she might be registered. I talked to the clerk and he said, "We don't have anyone staying here named Lucy" In the background I heard her say, "I'm Lucy!" She was not staying in the youth hostel but had just wandered in from the beach to ask the time. He handed her the phone and we were able to spend another evening together.

This was one of the clearer examples of psychic communication in my life.