Hey all! (sorry this is super late)
It's been a really exciting and jam packed week! Let's start with President Barack Obama's public Inauguration! If you didn't know already, he was sworn in for his second term on Sunday January 20th in a private ceremony in the White House. This is due to a Constitutional amendment declaring that the president must be sworn in by noon on January 20th. Let's move past my government nerdiness and move on to more government nerdiness times 10.
(Pics below are my journey to the National Mall Public Viewing area)
(Above: Security checkpoints)
(Above: So deserved a pic! This kid was reading the signs up at the security entrance)
(Above: Yeah this part didn't work out)
The Inauguration.
I was one of the unlucky ones, or rather lazy ones, who did not bother getting a ticket. For future reference, it's really not that hard. You must either have governmental connections or contact your Senator or Congressperson. It's really not THAT big of a deal but ticket holders can get way closer than I did. Anyway, as a non-ticket holder I was proud. I went with another girl in the Washington Semester who also did not have a ticket. We left at 6:30AM. It was dark. It was cold. It was awesome and Panera was open so we got bagels. For some background, the metro had special hours and other specifications: certain stations were closed and the metro opened at 4am and closed at 2am. My goal was to get to Constitution and 7th or Independence and 7th (streets) and this was a bit of an issue but I'll get to that.
Cops and volunteers were everywhere. Streets were blocked off. People were selling inaugural memorabilia everywhere! BUTTONS BUTTONS BUTTONS. I did not buy one. Instead I got a free one...more on that later. This is going to be a long post so go get a snack.
My friend and I got to 7th street and so we waited and waited and waited for like an hour and a half. There was a sign that said that this entrance was just for green ticketed people but we were basically surrounded my most people without tickets like us. The official inauguration website had said that this entrance should have been for non ticketed people. After an hour and a half a volunteer told us that the entrance was only for parade viewing and green ticketed people. We were rerouted to 18th street. UGH. With all the blocked streets and security checks at all the entrances we had to keep going up streets and over like a weird game of Tetris. BUT WE GOT TO 18TH ST!!! And we made it to the public viewing area on the national mall. Despite being pretty far from the Capitol, we had a great view.
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| Just a casual stroll by the West Wing |
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| Look we made it! |
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| For Non Ticketed people! |
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| I really wanted to pose with him. I'm holding out for the real deal. |
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| Not too bad ehh! |
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| Such a relief to see these volunteers telling us we had made it! |
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| Between the Capital and the Washington Monument (Above and Below) |
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| Adorably patriotic |
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| Wave the flag! |
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| Artsy??? |
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| So this picture (above) I tempered with a bit to bring out the awesomeness of this moment. It's the best shot of the day!!! |
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| So everytime my friend and I tried to take a picture of the big screens with Obama and whatnot the image always blacked out. So this is the closest shot I got of Obama. Sorry people |
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| Packed to get into the metro!!! We sort of cut the line...ooops |
As much as I would have liked to have a ticket to have been closer to Obama, it was really interesting to attend the Inauguration with thousands of the American public. It was really easy to tell that the American public is pretty stupid when it comes to politicians (and these are not my words these are the words of my textbooks!) When they would announce politicians and guests coming out it was easy to tell who the American public knew and didn't according to the amount of cheers, applause, and waving of the American flags given out to us.
I'm not a very patriotic person, for those of you who don't know me. So this was quite a patriotic moment for me: attending the Inauguration (especially after Obama's awesome speech). Going to Inauguration was amazing though and I hope everyone gets to experience it at least once.
