I should have known it when I met the nun. She had just celebrated her 89^th birthday the day before with her niece, and didn’t know how to work her mobile phone. I had had a rough night: who knew Dusseldorf had two airports?  Murphy’s Law had made me very tired, but I managed to find the number she was looking for: ‘convent’. She told me she had kept her name from before she became a nun: Eileen. I said it was a pretty name. Eileen blessed me in the name of God.

When we arrived in Kilkenny, I helped her with her suitcase, and we had our goodbye. It was the first time I’d ever met a nun. The first time I’d met someone named Eileen, actually. I sang her a bit of the ‘Come on Eileen’ and, well, she blessed me once again.

I arrived at the hotel where my first actual training was going to be. It had great beds. I freshened up a bit and put on some clean cloths, when someone knocked the door. It was one of the other trainers, David. David was Canadian. He actually knew Patrick Watson and Arcade Fire personally, so that made him a good guy for me. He worked at the YMCA in Cork, which I found surprising, because I didn’t think there were any YMCA’s outside of the Village People song, let  alone one being in an Irish city like Cork.

David and I went off to meet the other two trainers and the people of the National Agency. I have to say I was a bit nervous, it being my first job as a EU trainer, but these people were all extremely nice and relaxed. They made me feel like I wouldn’t have to do a perfect job, they would like me anyway. I impressed them with eating an entire Irish breakfast (rashers, bacon, eggs, pudding made of pigs blood) the next day. Good people. Thanks to them, the training in the morning went very well.  I told everybody that YouthNetworks is online dating for organizations. They seemed to like it.

I got a lift back from one of the trainers with another pretty Irish name: Deirdre. Deirdre told me that the Catholic Church was still very powerful in Ireland. 95% of schools are Catholic, birth control wasn’t legal until 20 years ago, and it isn’t likely that abortion will be legalized any time soon, as I already heard from Eileen. Deirdre bought me some ice-cream and dropped me of at the stop to catch the bus to Galway.

Galway is a student city.  I stayed with y high school friend Linda, who got stuck in Galway when she met her Irish boyfriend, Keith. Keith is able to make arrows for his huge buffalo-like bow, and Linda made me watch half a DVD-box of Father Ted-episodes. I didn’t mind. I love Father Ted. It’s about these three preachers that live on a small island near Galway. It’s hilarious.

Linda and Keith showed me around town. We rented bikes to make our way to the river. We had a little swim in the freezing water: I got a cold. Keith tried to avoid the sun to stay milky white: his idea of looking healthy. There were a lot of trees, green plants, stones, a cemetery and even an old castle. It was all very Irish.

Half a week had gone, and I was back in Dublin on a Saturday night. I cancelled my plans to go partying with Damien, a guy who let me sleep in his house the evening before I went back home, because my cold was getting very bad. I was sneezing all the time. It didn’t look very charming. Instead, Damien and I had a very long and interesting conversations about life, love, ants and Bjork. We decided to make a trip to Denmark in the future together. I got a long with him really good, so it was sad I had to leave at 6 in the morning, after a short night’s rest.

Philosophers have argued a lot about man being good from the start and being tempted into evil, or man having an evil nature, that he wants to control with rules and morals. Even though I think philosophical discussions are an excuse for not having to do something useful, I feel the goodness of people is a power in its own right. Those who say that mankind only does good for its own profit should think again, or come to Ireland.

When I had landed on the second airport of Dusseldorf I was offered a ride to the train station of Nijmegen by a man who had dropped of his parents on a flight to Spain. He smiled and drove me across the borders to the train station. He made my travel a little bit shorter. And a little bit nicer.