Home is where the Dom is

     I arrived in Cologne with a huge luggage full of dreams and expectations. After a Bachelor degree in foreign languages and communication, and a six month experience as an Erasmus student in the small German city of Saarbrücken, I was unmovable in the decision of leaving the warm wet air of my small village in the heel of the Italian boot and relocate to the land of poets and thinkers. So I reached Cologne on the first of May, a holiday. It didn’t surprise me to find all shops closed in what was a red day on the calendar, but I was quite astonished to acknowledge that the streets were deserted. Wasn’t Cologne a city with more than a million inhabitants? Where had they all gone? Apparently, the only Einheimische (locals) who bothered to give me a welcome were the two theatre figures Tünnes and Schäl.