von München nach Darmstadt...

Bel and I took a trip to Munich (München), in Bavaria (Bayern), from 19th to 21st. I can't really tell you what Munich is like, as I was there for some meetings, but Bel got to see a bit of the city...rumour has it that it is quite nice.

Anyway, to save a bit of money, and a bit of stress, I decided to take the ICE train down from Darmstadt to Munich with one of the FEs (sales guys) from the Kronberg office.
The trip started in fine style with Bel and I rocking up to the Darmstadt Hauptbahnhof about 1hr early. To kill some time we decided to get a coffee... We found a little café in the train station, and Bel ordered a hot chocolate, and I ordered a cappucino. I am not sure what they brought me, but sure as shit it wasn't no cappucino! The filth that I received was kinda like a long-black, minus the crema, with some frothed milk on top...it was also so strong that you could have stripped paint off the walls with it.

Train trip down was pretty uneventful, as well as the couple of days of meetings (except that I had to do an intro to them in German...).

On the way back, the FE and I were taking different trains home, as he had a train that got him to Frankfurt at a more convenient time for him.
I told the FE that our train was departing at 13:39, and he said that his was at 13:42, so we could take the S-Bahn (kinda like the Met) together at 13:20 and we would have plenty of time. I wasn't so sure that this was right [and he ignored my suggestion that we do our own thing and catch an earlier train in], as we needed to be at the Hauptbahnhof by 13:39 for our train, but the FE seemed sure that the 13:20 S-Bahn would be ok.
Anyway, we boarded the 13:20 S-Bahn for the Hauptbahnhof. After about 10min I start to doubt that we will reach the station in time [those of you who know Brett can imagine how well he would be handling this - but he actually was quite calm. Many paniced looks, but we did look at each other a few times at laugh about how rediculous it was]. With 5min to go I am looking at my watch, and looking at the train system map feeling kind of worried. With 1min to go I said to the FE that I didn't think we were going to make it for the 13:39 train at the Hauptbahnhof. He looked at the time, and at the train map, and he said "Yep, you will miss it. We should have left earlier." OH MY GOD!!!!!!
So, after a few confused looks it was revealed that the FE's itinerary was talking about him having to catch a 13:49 train from the S-Bahn station, to connect with a later train at the Hauptbahnhof. Our itinerary had been talking about us getting at 13:39 train from the Hauptbahnhof... :(

When we arrived at the Hauptbahnhof, about 5min too late, the FE helped us change our tickets to a later train, and we went separate ways.
Our new train required us to take the train from Munich to Mannheim, and then change for a train from Mannheim to Darmstadt. The trip to Mannheim was about 4hrs.
As we were nearing Mannheim, Bel and I were looking nervously at our watches. Our itinerary said that there was about 11mins overlap with the connection in Mannheim...problem was that our train was now running about 11mins late...we may just make it!
The conductor started babbling over the PA about some shit, and we kept hearing Darmstadt blah blah blah Darmstadt blah blah Darmstadt... It really sucks when you know they must be saying something about your train, and the fact that they are late, and all you can understand is Darmstadt. [And I thought I heard them say about our train 'Nicht Verheiratet', or 'not married', which made no sense, but perhaps they use married to mean connect or link up, so I was super worried.] And we had no idea when the next train to Darmstadt would be that day.
To make matters worse, a few mins out of Mannheim the train stops. Blah blah blah Darmstadt blah blah Darmstadt blah blah Darmstadt... SHUT UP ABOUT DARMSTADT ALREADY!!!! Now we are surely going to miss the train.
We finally pull into Mannheim, and Bel bolts out of the doors, ready to run in vain hope from platform 2 to platform 9 for the connecting train. As she starts to run off on me I notice that the train on platform 3 has the same time on it as our connecting train. Added to that, it also has Darmstadt on the list of stations. I yell out to Bel, point at the train, and we board it.
Once on board, we have a bit of a look around, and we can't find anything that indicates the train is going where we want it to go. To make matters worse, it has just come from France...and as it starts to move out, we are sure it's heading back the way we just came...in the direction of France! Panic much?!?!?
I go off in search of something that mentions the stops, but I can't find anything that mentions Darmstadt, and they fail to do their usual announcement telling the new passengers what train they have just boarded. I find something that says it stops in Frankfurt, so at least it's in the right direction...I guess. I had a bit of a closer look at the sign, and it had EC-55 for the train number. I checked our tickets, and they also said EC-55, so I was sure that this must be the right train. We hoped. ...luckily it turned out that it was, and eventually we got home.

Someone remind me again, who in their right mind would go to a country where they don't speak the language? And then who would board trains with intricate connection schedules in the same country? Nobody in their right mind, huh? :)

Tschüß
'Brush [and Bel]