My [late] Inauguration Report - Democratic Underground

Veruca Salt

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Sun Feb-15-09 12:37 PM
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My [late] Inauguration Report

Sorry this is so late! I had to wait for my future sis-in-law to upload a video which I thought was worth waiting for to post this.

Anyway, we had arrived in DC at around 2 in the AM on the 20th and the amount of people on the streets even at that time of night (or the morning, whichever you will) was amazing! The mood was incredible even at that time. There was one coffee shop open in Chinatown and it was wall to wall packed! The people inside though kept everyone who hadn't gotten their coffee yet moving to the counter, and though we were all cold the company was warm. :)

We hung out at the hotel (couldn't check in until 3pm) until we decided to head out and the bar attached to the hotel was gracious enough to let anyone use their bathroom. This was much needed to be able to 'thermal up' and plenty of people were coming in to do just that. We didn't head out until 6 ourselves, but many people who were going to the parade route or the national mall were leaving as early as 4am. As I said, we left at 6 and made our way to the Chinatown metro station. Surprisingly we had no trouble at this station, the cars were mostly empty, and were able to get on and off at L'Enfant plaza which was a different story. L'Enfant was crowded with people heading to Capital South but again we were able to catch the second metro so it still wasn't that bad. Now Capitol South was INSANE. The gates were up and a metro lady with a bullhorn was instructing people to 'keep moving'. She was great as were the other metro people who were guiding everyone through and keeping it orderly. The going was slow but eventually we made it to the exit and this is where the video comes in.

If anything shows the mood of the crowd at the escalator to the exit this is it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OC7OKyJ1lK8

Other people remarked on the ticketed area fiasco so I'll keep it brief; most are already aware of what the crowds were like going to the orange, blue and silver gates (which were all in the same area) and that it was tough finding where we needed to go. We were silver and ended up in a pen like area after getting through the first gate. And yes, the silver people were chanting 'let us in' as others have reported. :fistbump: We really didn't think we were going to make it in on time and there was a lady on the phone with her mum who was on the Ivory Coast giving us updates. After moving 3 steps every half an hour my brother decided we should head down and see if we could find a jumbo tron at least. We ended up getting out of the crush of people and started following a rather untrod path and lo and behold we find the security checkpoint for silver! Off we went up to where silver was supposed to end (which was the far side of the reflecting pool) but someone had torn down the fencing that had been put up (it was that shoddy green mesh fencing) so, like the bad silver people we were we followed the others and ended up at the Ulysses S. Grant statue. Literally on it's steps.

We may have still been far away but we ended up closer than we thought we'd be which was pretty cool!

Leaving was also just as insane as getting there. In fact, I'd almost say it was worse as when we finally got to where we could see the metro entrance we knew it was going to be HOURS before we were able to get onto a train. That's when we looked to our right and saw the highway:

And since it headed directly to where we needed to go, we decided to join the masses!

We also got pictures of us at the highway sign in the tunnel to the US Senate but I unfortunately don't have those at the moment (it was like pulling teeth to get the video! LOL). Suffice to say, the entire experience was simply amazing and I'm very glad we made the trip even if we slept for the following 3 days after due to exhaustion! :patriot: