First I missed my train, therefore me and the flyers were 20 minutes late. When I arrived at Wallrafplatz, almost everyone was already there. Including our personal police man.

We were 16 people, which was in fact far more than we had expected.

So we handed out flyers, held up our ratscape wanted posters and took a lot of pictures. Sadly very few people here in Germany have ever heard of Farscape. So most of the time we were busy explaining what the show is about. And it didn't help that Farscape isn't on the air here right now. But some people showed interest and promised to visit our websites and even to write a letter.

Then a guy from the German internet radio sf-radio.de showed up and interviewed us.

Around midday it started raining. But hey, we are Scapers, we don't stop just because we are wet and cold and tired and hungry. Ok, that's not entirely true.

Around 2:30 we decided to have a break and find a warm place and some much needed food. But it was Saturday, and we were in the main shopping area of Cologne. So we had to walk a bit to find a restaurant. All the way, we were showing our posters to the passers-by, handed out more flyers and answered a lot of questions. Then finally we found a Pizza Hut that actually had enough room for 16 starving Scapers.

About an hour later we headed back towards the Dom (that's the huge gothic cathedral and symbol of Cologne). And our strange little procession was in fact attracting a lot of intrigued glances. We continued our "demonstration" in front of the Dom for a while, but due to the weather which was continually getting worse, some of us decided to head home, and the rest took shelter inside the Dom. At about 4 or 4:30 pm we eventually split up.

To sum this all up: Although we probably didn't "assimilate" many new viewers, we had a lot of fun, met a bunch of very nice people and contributed to the cause by taking many pictures so you guys in the USA can say that this was indeed a Global Rally.

Susanka

There was a slight misunderstanding as to the size and nature of our event. All parties involved were highly amused as a result of this - both our tiny bunch of protesters, and the two policemen sent to... well, to do what exactly? Guard us? Guard the citizens of Cologne from having a Kemper chip implanted? They told us their task was to 'accompany us across the streets'. Hm.

We spent a few hours standing in the rain handing out flyers - designed by me - to the passersby. Some special mentions:

- The lederhosen guy.
Nager: "Do you like SF?'
Lederhosen Guy: "I have my lederhosen, that's enough."
Yeah, I can totally see that logic. He was nice about it, though, not unfriendly.
(Note to our international friends: Usually, most Germans do not wear lederhosen outside of Bavaria. I don't know what the guy was doing wearing them in Cologne.)

- The guy who simply turned and *ran* away when Nager tried to explain Farscape to him.
Nager: "I think I'm going to cry now."

Honourable mention for extreme coolness:

Hurrie's mom and little sister and brother who increased our numbers by an unexpected 3.

The whole crazy event was unexpectedly fun, despite the terrible weather and the strange gazes. We knew from the outset that the rally was pretty useless, and was merely a show of support for our fighting Scapers in the US. As such, it was well-documented by dozens of photos. We also supported Pizza Hut a bit. Didn't someone tell us to support Pizza Hut? ;-)