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I hitchhiked.
Yep. When I was a teenager my dad forced me to sit in front of the TV and watch “Taken.” At the end of the movie he reminded me that he was not, in fact, Liam Neeson, so if I was stupid enough to get in a car with a stranger, I would probably end up dead as a drugged prostitute in a creepy hotel (at least that was the implication).
So you can imagine that hitchhiking in a foreign country was pretty high on my “to don’t” list.
That was, until we were staring two taxis, two busses and three hours of travel in the face while lugging around a total of seven pieces of (heavy) luggage between two people.
Casey went to check out of the Dalhousie Castle we had stayed in the night before and ask the lady at the front desk where to get a taxi to the nearest bus station. Then (let’s call her Mary), offered to bring us to the station because she and her husband had to drive right through the center of town on their way from the hotel.
We were so relieved! God was truly looking down on us because taxis aren’t exactly the cheap way to travel.
But it gets better.
When Mary realized we were actually trying to get to St. Andrews, she said they were going to Cupar (which she claimed isn’t too far away from there) and offered to take us the full way.
Without much discussion Casey and I jumped at the offer and had one of the most pleasant hour and half drives of our lives. Mary and (Tom) were generous, interesting and wonderful company. They offered for us to visit them in the Borderlands, gave us great advice on places to see and things to do, and gave us the best introduction to Scottish hospitality that we could have imagined.
They wouldn’t take payment, which was amazingly kind of them since they certainly went out of their way to get us to St. Andrews and drop us off at the door of our hotel! After our excellent road trip, we exchanged contact information with a promise to meet again.
Now, I won’t be thumbing it anywhere else during our year here (one doesn’t want to test fate), but God was gracious to us that day and offered us a free ride to our new home 🙂
