Meantime the train drove slowly into the station. She was early and had enough time for changing the platform. Her information was, when she had bought her ticket days before, that she had to take the Thalys to Brussels, a train of the Belgian Railway she had often seen at the neighbouring platform when waiting for her "Eifel train". Once, when her train the Talent, went parallel with the Thalys over the big Rhine bridge coming from Cologne-Deutz, a small boy called: "Look, the Thalys!" Could this train be as famous as the ICE? Her eager expectation increased thoughshe still had lot of time before the departure of the Thalys.

At first she could not decide whether to have a look at the book store or to wait on the platform. So she stepped down to the basement, looked for the platform number and walked through the market hall. Different aromas filled the air, fruit shops and fast food stands offered their products, she flew into the bookstore. Maps, sightseeing guides, journals, papers, books, Harry Potter, of course in German and English, - - - she really did not notice all these things. "Better to go to the platform?" Could it be possible, that still other persons would take the same train and plane for this meating - via Brussels and by plane to Dublin? For a short time, Cologne Central Station could be an international turntable just for this meeting or did she only follow a dream?

This letter might have been a joke in order to get tourists there - and perhaps the paintings made by a Brian O'Donnell had never existed... She never had never heard of that painter before and really wanted to have a look at his pictures although she never had become an expert.

"Better waiting on the platform", she answered her inner question and walked slowly to number 8, "let's see what will happen. Perhaps there are no other people who are on the go to Ireland and I am alone?" - "Cannot be", she answered herself and slendered to the board with the schemes of the train carriages with their numbers to find out about her place in the train. If nobody would talk to her still on the platform while waiting for the Thalys, she earnest hoped that someone would be around her place, who had the same goal like her - going to Ireland led by the same curious letter.

Some days before, she had visited one of Cologne's famous book stores, where she had leafed through some guides of Ireland; she discovered only very short informations about Achill Island - but with the very interesting remark that Heinrich B"ll, a famous German writer, who had lived in Cologne, had had a little house there and described Ireland, this region and the Irish in his Irish Diary (Irisches Tagebuch). She immediately bought the book instead of a guide. Still on the way back, she started reading the book and nearly could not stop. His first trip to Ireland took place in the 50s, when she was a young girl visiting the last years of secondary school. This book was one of her most essential utensils for the journey to this special country called Ireland. If nobody would talk to her on the platform or on the train, she would have some company by the paintings formed through words by Heinrich B"ll. "What will be there today?" she thought, after such a long time of nearly 50 years since B"ll had been there, did the people change, the landscape even the weather?

The platform was not as crowded as normally at closing time, but there were some groups who looked special, perhaps travelling together. Young people with typical tracking outfit talking English and German. What would they think of a senior lady with a rucksack, jeans and a small suitcase? The train arrived and people stepped in. She was right, some persons of the watched groups came also into her carriage and she was happy, that someone helped her to put the suitcase into the luggage rack, a good chance to ask him where to go.