She had a strong will to get things managed if she thought they were necessary. Even for that she had learned skills in handworking and got therefore appreciation and help by her neighbors.

Her normal life was not very exciting within the village near a little town out of the Middle Ages. Pulsing life took place elsewhere and sometimes she had to participate in it. Then she took her car, drove up to the next railway station of the local traffic, took the next train and dived into the life of the metropolis of Cologne. She let herself push along the streets by the people, liked to rummage in bookstores, sometimes for hours, to take her cup of hot chocolate and watching people.

But one day it had been different. She had come to Cologne on a Saturday and strolled through the streets, asked something at the T-Point of her telephone company on the way back to the railway station, when she decided shortly before store-closing to have a look at a wooljacket, she had seen days before in a sales promotion, and bought it. Because even a big town like Cologne used to fall into sleep when shops were closed, she immediately tried to get to the Central Station as quickly as possible. Masses of people walked in the street, it was hard for her to get forward faster than the rest of the people.

Shortly before jumping into the train homewards, she bought a roll with cheese down in the basement of the station, her prefered food on the go, put the shopping bag into the luggage rack and relaxed, only her rucksack she put on her knees. Lots of people stayed in the carriage, but every one got a seat.

She loved the really new red coloured trains called Talent with their blue covered seats. Could be they are called so, because they are real talents in fulfilling their job within the local traffic, fuelled with Diesel, arranged in units of two carriages with place for people, bikes and baby-buggies, movably joined together with a bag similar that of an accordion, you could step through? They looked like relatives of modern trams, only that both ends of an unit had streamlined noses with the cabin for the conducter, so he only had to change the cabins for changing the driving direction. Depending on how many people were on the go, the railway company sent the train off with one or two connected units; the conductor could clutch them without help of a second person.

So most times everybody got a seat, like her on that special Saturday afternoon. Meantime knowing the trainroute very well she fell into a light sleep and stepped out of the train half way home as usual to change the train as usual. This other train also was a Talent, which left the station as the last one, so she could watch the other Talents coming from Bonn and Trier and Cologne, which met every half an hour in that station. When her train started, she was happy to be at home very soon back in her tranquil world, when suddenly something flashed through her brain, the luggage rack was empty! Her new bought jacket was on the way to Trier. The tiredness had gone, what to do now? She had had experience in forgetting sometimes things, but she normally could solve the problems without support by unknown people, but now?

In her little sleepy town at the back of beyond, particulary on weekend, the only member of the railway company was the conducter of the train and he could only give her the tip, "try to telephone", but he did not know any number. At home she finally managed it to find out telephone numbers and really in Trier employees of the railway found her jacket still lying in the rack. But getting back your lost and found things from the German Railways could be a risky enterprise, unless you can pick it up yourself at the station where they were found.

Lucky to be a senior with time and an owner of an ecoticket which nearly reaches to Trier she decided to visit the famous town, which was also influenced by the Romans like Cologne, and so she collected her jacket personally and had a good time for one day, visiting the Rheinische Landesmuseum, the famous Cathedral, walking through the town and passing the Porta Nigra on the way back to the station.

All these events of forgetting very important things in some very hectic situations of her life went through her brain, while she again was sitting in a Talent to get to Cologne. But this time she was not going to see the town or the university (meantime she had become a guest student), she was on the way to meet a lot of other people far away in a lonely place in Ireland, who also have to do something with this curious letter that had reached her some weeks before. How did the sender find out her address and that her person could have something to do with the family of a nearly forgotten painter Brian O'Donnell? Never she had thought of being a close relative of an artist whose  recently-found paintings were so excellent that the experts on art gave them such a high value mentioned in this letter? So it became very important to find out whether Brian O'Donnell was still alive or dead in order to find the correct owner.

Indeed there could be a connection to him, because a cousin of her in the United Staates had married a woman called Dorothy O'Donnel. There are often people in the world sharing the same name in spite of being relatives. Could be that's the reason, they all should meet to find it out?

She was looking around. Her excitement increased, she would have liked to tell everybody on the local train that she was on the go to a big meeting with so many unknown people in a country she never had been before, even she saw a little bit of the whole big world. This time she had forgotten nothing, her luggage was complete, tickets and passport ok. She even did not have forgotten some old papers of her familiy's history, could be they would be helpful to find out, who was a true relative of Brian O'Donnel and did not only have the same name? Of course it was told, that he had had a big family, whose members had been spread all over the world, but she remained sceptical.

After changing the local trains half the way to Central Station of Cologne she was looking forward to the typical sight of Cologne coming in from Cologne south to west and then Central Station just arriving at the feet of the Cathedral, this impressing big monument, which was started to be built in the style of "modern" gothic French cathedrals in the Middle Ages, no longer romanesqe and finished in the 19'th with the support of the King of Prussia.

Whenever she arrived at Cologne Central Station she looked up to the roof of the Cathedral, where she had been last summer - with a guided tour called "On the roof of the Cathedral". Above, 50 m height, she enjoyed the view on the Rhine, his bridges, the Central Station, the traffic down in the streets and all the other churches of Cologne, which are famous for the skyline. Inside, under the roof but above the ceiling of the Cathedral you could also walk around. Between the both big steeples they showed them the workshop of the stone-cutters and roofers with their special equipment for climbing outside of the church. But most of the visitors wondered about a wooden eagle hanging at the wall just over the entrance of the workshop . They were told, that it symbolized the State of Prussia and each time the king had a look at the Cathedral to see the progress of onstruction, this eagle was shown. Besides, she learned a lot about history of the construction of the Cathedral. Especially the construction of the roof had been very famous in the 19'th, because it had been made of steel. The Eiffel-Tower of Paris was constructed thereafter and then became more famous than the roof of the Cathedral. Finally this construction saved the Cathedral from being completely damaged during the second world war.

Meantime all important churches of Cologne were rebuilt after destruction in the last war, so visitors of the town should take themselves time to have a look at the famous romanesque churches in Cologne. She herself did not visit all today, a task she would have for the future. Her group was guided by the chief of the stone-cutters, who told them they would never run out of work at the Cathedral, because also time had damaged the sandstone which had been used in the Middle Ages.

Cologne was one of the oldest towns in Europe, more than 2000 years colonized. Whenever   they had built in Cologne, they could find historical things. Meantimes one knew very well, how the places must have looked at the time of the Romans. She was always impressed, when she had been told and shown something of former times by visiting excavations under the Cathedral or Groß St. Martin another famous part of Cologne's skyline.