Summer trip

All of a sudden, warm summer has arrived in Europe and shockingly, as well as in my Island!

Without thinking too much, I decided to pack my little suitcase and travel down south – Dover. However, as I almost live in the heart of England, B’ham I couldn’t simply teleport myself to my destination point. Thus, I decided to check how much it would cost me to get there by using public transport, particularly a train!

As my laptop was already on, I simply typed www.nationalrail.com updated my journey details, and that is where my story starts;

A return trip for Monday 21^st of July – Outward 6:10, Return 16:45 for total price of £242!!! It took a while for my usually quite fast thinking brain to adopt the fact that this journey is going to be more expensive than some people earn on a weekly basis based on a national minimum wage in England!

As it stands now the minimum wage for people whose age is 21 or above, must be no less than £6.31 per hour. So realistically, If we assume that a person works a standard 40 hours per week in 2014, then the math is going to be;

Gross income per year  £13,124.80,weekly £252.40

It looks great doesn’t it? However, now it’s time for Mr Cameron to take his portion of money out of taxpayer’s pockets – hence, the math must carry on

Gross income per year, £13,124.80 - Taxable Income £3,124.80 – Tax £624.96 – NI £620.26

So that equates to £11,879.58 which weekly will be £228.45

Thus, as the math shows, a traveller with a minimum wage will have to work more than a week to afford a three hour and approx. 212 mile trip!

Since I discovered how much my mind wants to learn or explore, I had only one option – check what it would look like, if I were looking for a similar trip somewhere in Continental Europe.

My first choice was pretty much evident – Germany and the Deutsche Bahn

Journey from Munich to Frankfurt on the same day and time as mentioned above which is also a comparable distance – approx. 243 miles! Ok, to be more precise – a bit further.

Total fare – 148,00 EUR!  Only because I like to stay classy - no matter what,  I won’t paraphrase what my mind said loudly seeing this price. The only question I’m dare to ask here, is why the heck I used the currency exchange calculator?  £117,16 – Huston we got a problem!!!

Psychologically, I had already reached the level of self-destruction. I almost felt like I’m on a suicide mission. Nevertheless, my research continues.

Amsterdam to Brussels – same story, £124.50

Paris to Lyon - £115.50 (288.39 miles)

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I shall unpack my suitcase and turn on the Discovery channel as I’m not going anywhere – Oh, and there is a documentary movie, how to travel in time – coincidence?