If you want the right answer, ask the right question!

A new trick I learned in England - if you need to go somewhere, just run and jump on a train. Ask later where the train is going and how to get a ticket. Addendum: this technique doesn't work in Germany.

I took train, tube and express train to catch a 99-pence Ryanair flight New Year's Day from Stansted to Karlsruhe-Baden airport in Germany. This amounted to a lot of running and leaping with a large wheeled duffel and even forcing the doors open on the tube when I got on the right train.

Yes, the trick is asking the right question - I asked "is this going to Liverpool Street" and was told "no", then discovered after squeezing out the doors like a watermelon seed that I should have stayed on to Bank Station to transfer for Liverpool.

I had the foresight to book a train ticket from Baden to Strasbourg, but I new it was a tight connection. Fortunately the flight landed early. Unfortunately I couldn't find my new Germany dictionary. I did ask the Ryanair bus driver in German where he was going. He responded by asking where I was going and directed me to the line of passengers waiting for the last #140 bus to the train station due at 21h40, just in time to make my connection. Then the Ryanair bus driver abandoned me to the Germans.

Eventually we got tired of waiting and various calls to the local bus company assured us the bus was coming. By 22h30, we were down to 4 stalwart souls, having flagged off the last taxi. After emptying my suitcase and still not finding the dictionary, I offered in broken German to walk to Baden with a woman with a backpack since I was stuck there till morning anyway. Finally the 4 of us agreed to share a taxi to the Baden station. At the station, I checked the schedule one last time — a train bound for Karslruhe was just pulling in on the farthest platform.

I drag my suitcase full tilt down ramp and up and jump on the train to Karlsruhe since that was on my reservation. Fortunately, the passenger from Heidelberg is on hand to explain I have just boarded the Orient Express. Unfortunately, she and the train are going in the opposite direction from Strasbourg. Fortunately, there is no conductor to accost me. And fortunately Karlsruhe is a bigger station with more trains. But by now it's midnight, I'm farther from home and nothing is going my way till 05h00. I empty my bag once more - still no dictionary and no point trying to find the hostel. Too tired even to bother looking for a connecting train, I remember enough German to find out there is no rule against staying overnight in the station. Unfortunately, there is no heat in the station and it's suddenly winter in Germany.

+ McDonalds stays open after posted midnight closing — ordered a nice hot cup of tea and read about Sykotic culture in a somewhat psychotic sleep-deprived state.
- McDonalds closed at 01h00 after all.
- Didn't think about washroom until after eviction.
- Washrooms in station are pay-entry.

+ Have change left!

+ Washrooms have radiators!!

- Radiators apparently supplied from outdoor reservoir
heated by single 40-watt light bulb.

02h30 after being mocked in German for dozing off on the radiator, I give up and go for a walk to renew circulation. Eventually settle in the elevator to one of the platforms for some shelter from the icy wind. This art deco-era elevator has an attention-getting feature — it jumps every few minutes, maybe to keep people like me from dozing off, maybe just because it's broken. Oh well, it's only 10 metres to the ground.

03h30 elevator jumps and finally drops to the bottom where 2 men in black riot suits with red berets enter with giant flashlights. Not sure whether I am about to be arrested for loitering or indoctrinated into a cult, I say Guten Abend in my most polite English-tourist accent. The only word I understand in the response was heiße — heat. This piques my interest. I ask them to repeat langsamer and discover they are offering to escort me to the heated waiting room at the other end of platform. *doh!* I set an alarm to wake me before my train and fall into a blissful slumber with the smarter weary travellers.

04h30 wake to find 2 trains on my platform — decide to check destination before boarding this time and discover neither is my train yet. After asking how to pick up my reservation, a conductor spends 15 minutes attempting to instruct me on the automated ticket machine, until I finally realize you can only buy a ticket from it. Information office that allegedly opens before 5 doesn't. Decision: risk unknown jail term and board the Oriental Express to Strasbourg.

No sign of conductor, Peter Ustinov or Agatha Christie's murderer — I disdainfully doze off in a potentially first-class recliner and descend an hour or so later at Strasbourg Gare Central with a sigh of relief. Meandering through the maze of construction to the only free taxi, I fare better giving French directions through the morning rush hour to my backwater home in Elsau.
German-English-German dictionary found at bottom of suitcase £4.50. Shared taxi from Baden Airport with hilarious like-minded travellers €7. SNCF train ticket delivered to my home address after I arrived home €17.90. Comprehensible taxi-driver who carried my luggage to my dock €10. The expression on the German hiker's face after I told her I was going to Strasbourg — priceless. Apparently the Ryanair bus driver failed to point out his own schedule to meet the last flight — Baden Airport to Strasbourg €15.

to come:
Brighton Beach
Turkish New Year