Pilgrims have started flooding Cologne. Don´t we all love baby blue Rucksacks? Every registered pilgrim seems to get one plus a likewise coloured key band... Praise the lord in baby blue!
Interesting to watch are the side effects of the pilgrims: the city seems to attract shady creatures of all kinds, trying to cash in on the popes visits. One guy was selling candles in front of the cathedral around noon today, inner city shops develop a strange passion for related t-shirts, banners, key rings... Loads of pickpockets have arrived I read in a news- paper.
Strangest sight today was a junkie standing more or less helpless but very angry in an alley behind the central station. Think he brought some postcards to sell them to pilgrims. But somehow he could not kick his habit and was completely out of his head. He had put his jacket around his waist and fastened it with the arms of the jacket. But he was not satisfied with the jacket and tried to fasten it more, pulling as hard as he could. That would not have been a problem but additionally he brought a pool cue with him, which he was holding with one hand at the same time. During the process of this all his pope postcards must have fallen to the ground. In this very second I passed him by, seeing him in this angry but somehow frozen position (think his gear was kicking in). STRANGE. No, I didn´t take a picture of this misery...