(A frustrated post written in a plane, scribbled on tablet. Please excuse any typos etc.)

My first trip to Europe! Since I came here little bit more than one month ago, my longest trip was to Salford (which is just around the corner from Manchester). And now the time has come for me to enjoy a trip to Germany!

(Now they are threatening us with trbulence.)

Ok, so my plane was scheduled at around 5.30 pm. I am usually required to be in the office until 4 pm, but I got an exemption today. I checked the tfgm.com website for trains. The trains are supposed to go ca every 10 minutes. The journey is supposed to take ca 20-25 min.

Now, the reality is that UK rail operators are a mess. (One of my bosses has taught me an expression "dog's dinner". Well, UK rail operators, that's exactly that, dog's dinner.) I am not sure whether there is just one transport / rail authority or there are more of them, but it's a mess either way, and all companies are equally bad obviously.

All the trains were delayed, some of them terribly. There should have been train going to the airport from platform 13 in about 5 min. So I went there. (It's pretty far, 13 and 14 are the furthest platforms.) There was a train, weirdly standing so that its first carriage was in the middle of the platform. No one was getting in or out. The driver refused to let us in, claiming that he was only waiting for green light.

(Lufthansa gave me a sandwich! This hasn't happened to me for ages! My inner Englishman is delighted.)

The info given on the platform was that the train would leave in about 2 min. (There was no train at that moment.) After ca 10 min I decided to try to ask a railway guy. I was not the only one asking, and we were all told that the train was delayed (thank you cpt Obvious) and that in about 5 min, there would be train from platform 5.

So I went to platform 5, which turned out to be platform 4. At first, I was slightly optimistic, because at least there was a train. I boarded that train. Scheduled departure was 15.52.  Every 1-2 minutes, this changed +1 min. At 16.20, the train was still there, on that platform.

Someone then announced something like "we cannot leave because we don't have the driver, we don't know where he is, he is not here but we are chasing him and we should depart soon, and all passengers who really want to go to the airport now should go to platform 13, because a train will go from there to the airport at 16.29".

So I went to platform 13, and guess what. There was bunch of panicking, desperate-looking people, and a train which did not want to let anyone in. O_o

After some more waiting, a train finally arrived and it was announced that it would go straight to the airport. It was 16.36. (In the meantime, the train on platform 13 left, train to Scarborough arrived on platform 14a, and ca 1/3 of the desperate-looking people boarded that train. What was so critical about train to Scarborough, I don't know.)

The airport-bound train quickly filled with panicking passengers. Many had huge bags, and many wanted to stay as close as possible to the doors, and that created a mess. (People were basically tripping over each other.) But a miracle occurred, and we actually started moving shortly before 16.45.

Arrival to the airport was also funny. Luckily I was on the right side of the train, close to the door adjacent the platform (which was in fact the left side of the train...), and as I am not lazy to run a bit, I was able to arrive at airport security before almost everyone else. Therefore I had to wait for only ca 10 min.

(We had tail wind and would be landing shortly.)

And you know, the best part really is that due to strong winds, the Hansa plane was delayed! When I finally came to the gate, instead of finding empty chairs and nervous attendants waiting for the last few people, I found 100 Germans, nervous because things were not in order!

Like, seriously?