About 150,000 pilgrims gathered to welcome the Pope. As the sea of flags testified, they came from all corners of the globe, from Papua New Guinea to Paraguay and Sweden to South Africa as well as from Australia.

The crowd of pilgrims (tourists with a religious reason for travelling) were not paying too much attention to the entertainment put on in Bangaroo before the Pope arrived. In fact, the presenters struggled to get response from the crowd when they introduced each group. Our group had arrived early at about 1pm and we were too busy lazing in the Australian Winter sunshine, reading, doing soduko, snoozing, or trying to figure out from the flags they were carrying where the different groups came from to respond to the presenters. We weren't there for the entertainment.

The mood of the crowd changed dramatically when at about 3pm a few voices exclaimed "It's the Pope!". A buzz rippled through the crowd. I opened my eyes and stood up to see for myself, just like 1000s of others. There before us on the large screens was Pope Benedict XVI! I think that I only realised then just how much I was looking forward to seeing the Pope. I was amazed that I was actually looking at his smillng face. He spoke to us all, laughing, joking, and giving us his blessing. I'm glad that I saw him in the flesh because I now have a sense of who the Pope is as a person.