We were on a train on our way from Bulgaria to Greece. We got to the boarder and hopped on the bus that would take us across to the Greece-side train station. That train was way behind schedule because it had been hit by a car. WHAT?
We were finally able to hop on that train. It was around 11pm. They came around to punch our tickets. When we gave them our tickets, they said they weren’t the tickets for that train and we’d need to buy the correct tickets. No problem, right?
Well…it wouldn’t have been, except that we didn’t have the correct currency. They needed European Euros. Between the six of us, we had 4 different currencies, but none of them were the one we needed. NOW WHAT?!?!?! He told us we’d have to get off the train at the next stop. We went to the dining car and asked if they’d exchange currency, but they didn’t.
We didn’t know what to do. We were going to be kicked off the last train for the night into a city? Town? We didn’t know, where there might be no place to acquire the money we needed to get out of there, let alone survive!
So we laughed.
What else was there to do? At this point, we’re just like “yep, that’s how we do. Like clueless Americans, stumbling around the world. We’ve made it this far. It’ll be fine…somehow!”
There was a nice young man sitting in front of us who offered to try to pay for us if the train would accept the student discount for each of us. He needed to get all the way to Athens, but he was offering all the money he had to help us out!
When he talked to the train conductor and offered what he had, the conductor said “it’s okay…this time. Next time, have tickets!”
WHAT?!?!?!?!?!?!? He was allowing us to ride free! We were ready to cry with relief, let me tell ya!
There’s definitely special angels just for World Racers on travel days. Praise the Lord that He sent one in the form of that train conductor!
