Hitchhiking story

I'm Scottish and lived in Hamburg for a few years (1994-97). A little while ago my closest friend from that time was visiting me; we were chatting about my first time in Germany, years earlier (1983), while hitching across Europe. I had arrived in Hamburg late one night but had not been able to find a place to stay and had decided to keep going; a driver who picked me up asked me "why are you hitchhiking at 2am anyway?" and I'd explained, whereupon he invited me to come and sleep on his floor and continue my journey in the morning. We hadn't kept in touch apart from a postcard or two but his name had stuck in my mind (not a very common German name), and I mentioned it when telling my friend the story. My friend said "my best friend at school had that name!" and asked a couple of questions, such as where in Hamburg he had lived (I also remembered the street name), what he looked like etc. It turned out to be the same person: so in 1983 I'd stayed a night with an old school friend of the person who became my closest friend 12 years later, but didn't discover the fact until a further 15 years had passed.