For someone not familiar with international travel, it might seem a bit bewildering, but it's not really. Sure, language can be a problem, but as I have often told my kids, "if you don't know, ask!".
Fortunately for us Americans, many people in the travel business (hotels, airlines, etc) speak English. I got from my hotel, through airport check-in, security and the whole bit with no difficulty. I had to wait a while in the airport concourse to see which gate my flight would leave from, and once posted, I proceeded to that gate.
There, sure enough, I met a number of other participants of this Elderhostel trip. Elderhostel sends out a list of participants before the trip, so I make it a habit to memorize names and home locations for others on the trip. So, during this initial meeting at the Frankfurt airport gate, I had the opportunity to match names and faces.
From Elderhostel's point of view, arranging everyone's itinerary to convene at a common point, results in many, if not all, participants arriving at the trip's first destination as a group. Certainly others may have (did have) their own travel interests, so they made their own arrangements to get to the first city and hotel.
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