Crowds, crowds, and more crowds.

INAUGURATION DAY!!!

Katie and I, with our shiny silver section tickets, headed out about 7am to begin the 1/2 hour walk to the capitol. We were greeted by streets already full of eager inauguration goers hurrying towards the big event. Kids were on the sidewalk selling hot chocolate and hand warmers and every few minutes a random cheer would raise from somewhere proclaiming OBAMA!! As we neared the capitol, the crowd began getting really dense. The first pic is us trying to walk towards our ticket section around 7:30am...



When we finally got near the gate, we were greeted by more streets filled with people, only this time the people weren't moving at all, not even at a snails pace. We could see the entrance we were attempting to reach, but we were stuck in this mob from about 8 to 9 am. And once they finally opened the gate, a lot of these people realized...oh wait! I don't have a ticket and I can't get in here...hmm. So then they tried to go backwards and made the whole mess even worse. Read the signs people!



We finally made it in to our ticketed section around 9:30, just in time to stand around and FREEZE for 2 hours before the ceremony began. Around 10 they started showing celebrities arriving and the mall filling up with people. As far as I could see back towards the Washington Monument, it was a sea of heads and waving American flags. Around 11 when the important politicians began arriving, people got rowdier. Every time Bush appeared on the big screen (apart from the time when he was with Obama) the crowd began singing "nananana nananana hey hey hey, GOODBYE!" Joe Lieberman also got some unfriendly boos and comments but overall, people were in good, screaming, spirits!


Our view of Obama for the swearing in and speech!


Katie and I trying to stay warm!!

After it was all over, everyone tried to make a mass exudes. Disastrous. We walked towards the street and realized it was at a standstill so instead we walked up towards the capitol. The reflecting pool was completely frozen and everyone was "skating around on it." Then we saw (on a big screen) Bush getting into the helicopter and flying away which brought about another deafening scream of joy from the crowd that remained. After about an hour of trying to navigate our way out of the maze created to keep people in and out of sections, we made it to a free street and headed home!

Since we live relatively close to the capitol and people were scared of the metro crowds, most of our friends ended up at our house as well....so after 7 hours in the cold...we had to endure 10 hours of partying! It was a LONG day!

More pics of the whole crazy weekend are here.