I Was There
Jan 21, 2009 0:35:12 GMT -5
Post by blownspot on Jan 21, 2009 0:35:12 GMT -5
Well since it looks like I may make it out of the first round of the Punster of the year showdown (Sorry GM) I guess I should post more outside of the OOWF forums.
I figured I would share part of my amazing day today in Washington, DC. I type this under a cloud of weary stupor, so apologies for any incoherence, grammatical errors and the like. I just want to get this out and to share!
January 20, 2009
12:00AM to 4:15 AM - I can't sleep. I know I should, but I'm too pumped up for the inauguration. Damn, It's 4:15AM and there are ALREADY 10,000 people on The Mall grounds. How the hell did they...?
5:30AM - There's a knock on my bedroom door. I must have fallen asleep. My brother is there and he says we need to leave NOW if we're going to get a good spot. We don't have tickets to the swearing in ceremony or the parade, but we shouldn't need them to find a nice spot along the parade route.
I tell my brother I'll be ready in a minute. I shut my door and briefly contemplate blowing off the whole thing and going back to sleep. I'm NOT a morning person.
I can't blow this off.
I don't want to have to tell my future children that I was living in the area and didn't go.
The plan is to make the short drive to the beginning of the red line metro so we won't have to fight crowds along the route to Union Station which let's out right by the Capitol building.
The plan works. We get to the Metro train station and there aren't too many people there. My mom decided to go with us at the last moment, so it's my youngest brother, my mom and myself. I just realize I forgot my camera. My brother has his though.
6:05AM to 6:35AM -
That's me, under three layers of shirts, jackets, and pants, giving the thumbs up. I am NOT a morning person and I'm BURNING UP. This, however, is the most comfortable I will be for quite some time. By the next stop my view look like this.
The lady in the white hat is from San Diego. Her name is Laura, and she ended up sitting on my lap, for the next 5 stops, until we got to Union Station. I figured we should get to know each other a little, seeing as how she was... sitting on my lap. All I found out was that she had flown in from San Diego.
6:35AM - 8:25AM - I CAN NOT BELIEVE that we were able to walk up to the Capitol steps before being turned away. I had thought it all gated off. We were kindly herded by Capitol police to the D street checkpoint to the parade route.
It's freezing and the cold wind is blowing through this corridor. We arrived at this point at around 7:15AM. That's the view in front of me, which is about 50 feet from where they are letting us walk through. I say there were about 350 people in front and around us.
Many hundreds more behind me.
That's me again with the hood pulled over my head. That corridor curves around back toward the Capitol Building. There were THOUSANDS of people lined up behind us. It looks like we arrived at a decent time. Our wait to get through that gate was about an hour and a half. It's fucking COLD!
I can't feel my toes.
8:25AM - 1:15AM
We found a decent spot to stand. We have a pretty good view of the front of the Capitol building. We were told that you could either stand on The Mall or at the parade route, but don't try to work both in. It turns out there was another 3 hour wait through a separate check point at 7th street, a couple of blocks away, to get onto The Mall.
We stayed put.
For three hours.
In the cold.
Amongst the MASSES!
My brother caught photos of the motorcade as it arrived at the Capitol building.
Obama arrives in a Caddy! That car was pimp. About an hour later representatives from all the armed forces arrive and line up along the parade route.
To cheers from the crowd. This crowd loves to chant. We would shout YES WE CAN! and OBAMA! intermittently every five minutes. The atmosphere was AMAZING absolutely AMAZING! Everyone is smiling, we're all cordial, and complaints were kept to a minimum despite the conditions.
It's cold.
There are people all up on you, pushing and shoving.
There was no Jumbotron near our section, which I found disappointing.
There was no loudspeaker near our section so we could barely make out what was being said on stage. All we could hear was an echo. But there weren't too many complaints... we were just happy to be where we were.
On those grounds.
On this day.
A girl in front of me had called her mom back home, who held the phone up by the television so twenty of us who were huddled around this poor girl could hear through speakerphone, what was being said on stage, to about a 3 second delay. The mom kept asking if we could hear and her daughter would reply "Yes mommy. We can hear. I got about 30 people listening with me. Thanks mom!" to which we would all say in unison "THANKS MOM!" We could hear her mom laughing hysterically at that!
Finally Obama is being sworn in. This is our view.
Can't see Obama or the rest, but we can hear him. We hung on his every word. It was a great speech. It got us all cheering. Just to be there, despite conditions was simply awesome.
We would spend the next few hours just taking it all in. Cheering as Obama's motorcade past. Getting to talk with people from all over the country, and the world. All of us just excited and happy to be there. My brother's camera battery unfortunately died before he could capture images of the parade and all we did after.
But it was all good. I'm not one for crowds. I hate crowds. But I was SO glad I went to this.
I am dead tired and I will NEVER forget this day.
I figured I would share part of my amazing day today in Washington, DC. I type this under a cloud of weary stupor, so apologies for any incoherence, grammatical errors and the like. I just want to get this out and to share!
January 20, 2009
12:00AM to 4:15 AM - I can't sleep. I know I should, but I'm too pumped up for the inauguration. Damn, It's 4:15AM and there are ALREADY 10,000 people on The Mall grounds. How the hell did they...?
5:30AM - There's a knock on my bedroom door. I must have fallen asleep. My brother is there and he says we need to leave NOW if we're going to get a good spot. We don't have tickets to the swearing in ceremony or the parade, but we shouldn't need them to find a nice spot along the parade route.
I tell my brother I'll be ready in a minute. I shut my door and briefly contemplate blowing off the whole thing and going back to sleep. I'm NOT a morning person.
I can't blow this off.
I don't want to have to tell my future children that I was living in the area and didn't go.
The plan is to make the short drive to the beginning of the red line metro so we won't have to fight crowds along the route to Union Station which let's out right by the Capitol building.
The plan works. We get to the Metro train station and there aren't too many people there. My mom decided to go with us at the last moment, so it's my youngest brother, my mom and myself. I just realize I forgot my camera. My brother has his though.
6:05AM to 6:35AM -
That's me, under three layers of shirts, jackets, and pants, giving the thumbs up. I am NOT a morning person and I'm BURNING UP. This, however, is the most comfortable I will be for quite some time. By the next stop my view look like this.
The lady in the white hat is from San Diego. Her name is Laura, and she ended up sitting on my lap, for the next 5 stops, until we got to Union Station. I figured we should get to know each other a little, seeing as how she was... sitting on my lap. All I found out was that she had flown in from San Diego.
6:35AM - 8:25AM - I CAN NOT BELIEVE that we were able to walk up to the Capitol steps before being turned away. I had thought it all gated off. We were kindly herded by Capitol police to the D street checkpoint to the parade route.
It's freezing and the cold wind is blowing through this corridor. We arrived at this point at around 7:15AM. That's the view in front of me, which is about 50 feet from where they are letting us walk through. I say there were about 350 people in front and around us.
Many hundreds more behind me.
That's me again with the hood pulled over my head. That corridor curves around back toward the Capitol Building. There were THOUSANDS of people lined up behind us. It looks like we arrived at a decent time. Our wait to get through that gate was about an hour and a half. It's fucking COLD!
I can't feel my toes.
8:25AM - 1:15AM
We found a decent spot to stand. We have a pretty good view of the front of the Capitol building. We were told that you could either stand on The Mall or at the parade route, but don't try to work both in. It turns out there was another 3 hour wait through a separate check point at 7th street, a couple of blocks away, to get onto The Mall.
We stayed put.
For three hours.
In the cold.
Amongst the MASSES!
My brother caught photos of the motorcade as it arrived at the Capitol building.
Obama arrives in a Caddy! That car was pimp. About an hour later representatives from all the armed forces arrive and line up along the parade route.
To cheers from the crowd. This crowd loves to chant. We would shout YES WE CAN! and OBAMA! intermittently every five minutes. The atmosphere was AMAZING absolutely AMAZING! Everyone is smiling, we're all cordial, and complaints were kept to a minimum despite the conditions.
It's cold.
There are people all up on you, pushing and shoving.
There was no Jumbotron near our section, which I found disappointing.
There was no loudspeaker near our section so we could barely make out what was being said on stage. All we could hear was an echo. But there weren't too many complaints... we were just happy to be where we were.
On those grounds.
On this day.
A girl in front of me had called her mom back home, who held the phone up by the television so twenty of us who were huddled around this poor girl could hear through speakerphone, what was being said on stage, to about a 3 second delay. The mom kept asking if we could hear and her daughter would reply "Yes mommy. We can hear. I got about 30 people listening with me. Thanks mom!" to which we would all say in unison "THANKS MOM!" We could hear her mom laughing hysterically at that!
Finally Obama is being sworn in. This is our view.
Can't see Obama or the rest, but we can hear him. We hung on his every word. It was a great speech. It got us all cheering. Just to be there, despite conditions was simply awesome.
We would spend the next few hours just taking it all in. Cheering as Obama's motorcade past. Getting to talk with people from all over the country, and the world. All of us just excited and happy to be there. My brother's camera battery unfortunately died before he could capture images of the parade and all we did after.
But it was all good. I'm not one for crowds. I hate crowds. But I was SO glad I went to this.
I am dead tired and I will NEVER forget this day.