Got up today at 4:30. a.m.
Left the suite at 5:30 a.m.
Got to our spot in the National Mall at 7:00. We ended up about 30 feet from the 4th Jumbotron� or roughly � mile from the white house.
For an hour, we just sat there, freezing. Then, at about 8:00, the Jumbotron turned on to announce that there were no more open spaces for parade viewers. (I got a kick out of this, because some dorks next to use had been loudly bragging about how they were going to skip down and see both the Inauguration AND the Inaugural Parade. Ha, as if!)
At 9:00, they did a replay of Sunday�s big concert. IT WAS AWESOME!!! I guess I didn�t miss it after all.
By 10:00, the San Franscio Boys and Girls choir opened the show! They are amazing singers, the lot of them, if a bit tedious.
Then they started showing all the guests show up for the big inauguration. They looked cold. I think they should have sucked it up. We had been standing outside for at least six hours, and some people had been there even longer.
The only fun part about the famous people, the senators, the house members, etc, was� um� nothing, besides recognizing who they were. It was dulls-ville, and you also got to hear snippets of their conversations. Blah, blah, blah.
Then, President Elect Barack Obama hit the screen, baby! The noise was defining.
When he became our President, the air was filled with excitement. Everyone was holding their breath. Everyone. When Obama hesitated before repeating the pledge, everyone laughed, nervously, giddily. (Later we found out that the hesitation was due to the fact that the judge reading it to him messed up the words- Obama had to retake the pledge.)
When HE gave his first speech as President of The United States of America, it was so, so amazing. I admit, I cried. Haha, then I cried during the benediction.
The only weird thing was that the screens and sound systems were always unmatched� for instance, you would watch someone�s lips moving, and about three or four seconds later, you would hear what it is that they just said. It was more than a little bizarre. You�d think that for something with so much historical significance they would have higher quality. Huh. Oh well.
Haha, when Obama spoke, the sun broke the clouds, the earth was warmed, the air was bright. Thank you, Mother Nature, you really made him look great.
But then the crowds were awful when we were done. The metro was shut down, the journey was huge, and the parents were buttheads, as always.
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Ps: Not only was the crowding terrible afterwards, so was the level of trash. The mall/ streets area was so covered in garbage you had to wade through it to get anywhere. The grass of the mall was trampled and squished to death, and all the porty johns were filled to capacity.
Also, when our three-person-per-square-foot crowd got channeled into the metro tunnel, the poor fools that went in got stuck there for three hours. Yuck, yuck, and three times yuck. So glad that wasn�t us.
Quote of the day: �I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the office of President of The United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend The Constitution of the United States.�