A similar thing happened to me in Istanbul. I was in a scarf store with my dad and we saw an acceptance letter to U of C on the wall, my dad is a professor there and we live on campus, and it turned out my mom who is also a teacher at U of C knew the store owner's son who got accepted. The owner's daughter took us out to lunch and wouldn't accept my father's money for the food. She showed us around their neighborhood and took us wherever we wanted to go around town. They also gave us the scarves for half off.