I Was There!

*Please excuse my shitty pictures. The big fancy pretty camera you see about is NOT digital, its my 35mm SLR. Everything else was taken with my Nikon Coolpix and the dawn lighting was effing with my flash. Plus my hands were cold so taking the actual pictures was sort of lethal.






The population of DC is roughly 600,000. The DC metro area (consisting of southern Maryland and Northern Virginia) is home to about 5.3 million people. Imagine DC filled with ALL of these people, plus tourists from all up and down the eastern seaboard, the midwest, the west coast, the southern states- all in one area, all at one time. Pretty fucking crazy, right? I don't care what numbers The Washington Post or CNN or MSNBC posted in terms of crowd attendance. To truly understand the intense MOBS of people that showed up, you just had to be there. And I was!

The night before the big day, I went to Silver Spring, MD (right outside of DC) and spent the night with my cousin and her friend. We got up at 300am, and left around 4 to head into DC. By the time we got downtown, the trains were PACKED, people were everywhere; American flags and red/white/blue hats, poms, blankets, face paint, ALL OVER THE PLACE. It was like Halloween except everybody matched. While we were riding the train, these women in the back of the car kept yelling "OBAMAAAAAAAAA!" every single time the doors opened. At 4 in the morning. They were quite the patriotic bunch.

I wore my track leggings underneath my jeans, 2 pairs of socks (with these feet warmer a la the camping aisle at Wal-Mart), 3 long sleeve shirts, a heavy GAP sweater, the thickest hoodie I own + one of my (lighter, I left my North Face in NY. Genius, I know.) winter coats. I wore 2 pairs of gloves (with hand warmer things, that worked but turned my hands AND gloves black), a scarf, a headband around my lower face area and ear muffs. Was I warm, you ask? Um, FUCK no. It was the coldest I think it's ever been in the history of Washington D.C. (founded 1790). I expected it to be really cold during the early morning hours, before the sun came up but even after it rose, the temperature just kept dropping. My feet were so cold I couldn't move them/feel them. My entire body shook pretty much the entire day (I was outside from 430am-300pm) and my joints hurt so badly, and got so stiff from lack of movement. It was pretty hardcore. Army Ranger type shit.

I got off the train at Metro Center and discovered that the city had essentially blocked off every single road in the city to everyone except select buses and law enforcement/military vehicles. They set up gates at the entrances to the National Mall and along the Parade route (followin the ceremony), and at 430, people had already decided to forgo the N.M. madness and get ggood seats for the parade, which wasn't scheduled to begin until at least 230pm (Um, crazy?). I made a quick stop at Au Bon Pair, stood in (the wrong) line for about 30 minutes helped my Mom find her bank card (she lost it temporarily), and was mis-directed three times by DC cops (incompetent much?). We finally made it to the 3rd St tunnel @ Indiana Ave where a couple thousand people had conviened to wait for the tunnel (and thus, entrance to the Mall, or so we thought) to open at 730. The cold was bitter, but people were literally singing in the street, taking pictures, sleeping on the curb, and just having as best a time as possible at 6am in 12 degree (plus wind chill) weather. Even the Canadians were there to support! Time was seriously CREEPING, and more and more people kept showing up, to the point where I couldn't see down the block anymore, all I could see were flags and the heads of people. Some irritating lady cop got on a megaphone every 30minutes and announced that the opening of the tunnel would be pushed back. I halfway expected the crown to start rioting, which would have made for some pretty interesting videos, assuming I made it out, but we only erupted into sporatic chants: "OPEN THE GATE! OPEN THE GATE!" ect. A guy got up on a barrier and started telling jokes to the crowd (an aspiring comedians heaven) and by 9am, they STILL hadn't let us through. A lot of people started to leave and look for other entrances, especially when we found out that they weren't going to allow us to cross the street into the mall because they were bringing Obama and Biden and other super important people in to the Capitol. But we stood our ground and eventually made it through the gate at around 11. It was sucky that they wouldn't let us onto the PACKED Mall (they shut it down due to the mass volumes of people) but I was across the street, near the Dept. of Labor and had a pretty decent view considering, and could hear the performers/speakers, though we got a bit of a delay due to echo. Before the ceremony started, a motorcade came through and my sister (who is four inches taller than me) says that Michelle looked and waved at her! She also swears Joe Biden was in one of the cars. The vibe of DC and everyone that was there yesterday was so amazing; everyone was happy and celebrating, the street vendors were selling everything from tshirts and buttons to "official" Inagural programs and, yes, HOT SAUCE.



They had scarves, hats, shrink-wrapped newspapers from Nov. 4th and Jan. 20th, posters, calenders with Malia and Sasha's faces splashed across it, flashing rings, bobble head figures of the entire First Family, caricature drawings of Obama- it was like one giant Obama merchandise store. After the ceremony, I got lost for a little bit (this is when I found Mr. Obama hot sauce) and everywhere I went, it was like a huge block party. Vendors had their cars parked along the streets with all the doors open, windows down and music BLARING; add the noise of the crowd, plus music from inside the stores and you begin to understand the hearing aid I will inevitably require in 4 years, just in time for his re-election. Ha.

What I'm looking forward to most is telling my kids that when a Black man became prez, not only did I vote for him but I was in attendance at the shit show that was his Inauguration. Holla!






I totally screwed up the alignment of the pictures and I don't feel like doing it all over again, so bear with me!

P.S.- Erika, I didn't see ANY blatant racists! I even listened in on a ton of conversations and nobody had anything bad to say! I was thoroughly disappointed. Although there was this one Black kid (really obnoxious, but funny) who was counting down the minutes to 12pm (when the current President loses his title, regardless of the status of the President-elect's oath) and kept announcing how many minutes he had left. This old white guy standing behind him looked kind of irritated when the Black kid starting talking about how shitty good 'ol W. is. Then he said, "Well, he was still our President. We can at least be nice to him in his last minutes". LOL. Then the Black guy said: "Yeah you're right. We can't let him go out like those Iraqis did" (Shoe reference). That was about as close to anti-Obama as it got. Sort of surreal. Maybe we should take a trip through rural South Carolina or Wyoming and see what they think.