Day Three, Part One

Maybe it's just Munich when it comes to reserved crowds. Altotting is a far different picture. By 8:50 a.m., the square downtown square is packed with people, choirs singing and bands playing (I just heard a song whose name I can't recall but reminded me of the classic "Eres Tu" with Kenny G-style saxaphone). Perhaps its the intimacy of having this event in a small town, but there is a definite electricity to the morning that was hard to feel in Munich.

Church dignitaries are arriving and they just showed Benedict XVI getting into the papal helicopter. The text of his homily is not available yet.

The press is set up in one of the houses along the town square, directly opposite of the altar. We just found out that the floor we're on is reserved only for the regular Vatican journalists, and a mass of people just went down to the second floor, where we are supposed to be. But that room is so ridiculously packed that we're going to take our chances here. We're going to act like we belong, which seems to work out pretty well when covering Vatican events. I'm attempting to put a picture or two at the end of this post that shows our view. With a zoom lense, we should get some nice shots.

One little note, the hotel we're staying at, Hotel Plankt, is quote proud of their homegrown pope. In their gift shops, bottles of mineral water looked like the labels were stripped and replaced with "Pope Water" labels (papst wasser). Also, they make their own liqours and last night for dinner, the hotel owner gave us a small glass of "Benedict goldwater" for dessert. It was a clear liquor with a strong, kind of sweet taste and, yes, flakes of gold in it.

Mass starts in about 70 minutes and choir has begun rehearsing songs. The papal helicopter has just touched the ground in a nearby field.