Obama Rally in Washington Square Park

On Thursday September 27th Nikki and I went to an Obama rally in Washington Square Park. It was a pretty exciting experience.

First off we both took a half day from work. That's always fun! We then hopped onto the train from Edison and finally ended up at Washington Square Park around 3pm. However, they weren't letting people in yet so we had to find something to do. We found a small cute cafe to stop at. While there we got a couple sodas and a fruit plate. The fruit plate was so so but it certainly wasn't worth 8 bucks!

We stayed there until about 4:30 and decided to head to the park again. By that point there were only a few.....ZILLION people trying to get in. We bought a couple buttons and crammed into line. There were 4 massive lines that surged towards 4 metal detectors. 4 metal detectors and 12 security guides working them scanning 24,000 people...this was going to take awhile. and i SURE did! yeeeesh. Here is what it was like for most of the rally. Imagine being in a tiny closet with a heater pumping out hot humid air that smelled like perfume and BO. That's about what it was like, Nikki and I would both say "AHhhhh" every time we felt a breeze and take a deep breath.

Well we finally managed to get through the checkpoint and probably got about 25 yards from the stage. When we first got in crowding was moderate but not as bad as the security line but shortly after we got in they closed the checkpoint and the rest of the crowd surged in. I think they did this because people started leave as they chanted "LET US IN!"
Obama arrived maybe 10 minutes after we got through security. What a great speaker! He really had the crowd going. One minute they would be yelling and screaming and then the next completely quiet hanging on every word. There were news helicopters hovering above and tons of press. We both find it exciting to be at events like this! In fact i found myself in a published NYTimes photo. Not that anyone but myself would notice that but i still think it's cool! I circled myself.

Well he finished his speech in about an hour and then it was time to shake hands and all that so while tons of people were leaving we did our best to get as close to the rope line. We managed to get about 3 feet from the rope. Obama moved through our section and Nikki actually got a handshake from him! She was so excited!

After the rally we took a brief tour of Greenwich Village and found a cute Indian place to have dinner. It was pretty good and was reasonably priced. Although the Chicken tiki masala sauce tasted like it was made with Campbell's tomato soup rather than tomatoes.

After dinner we took the subway to the WTC site. We had never been there since the attack. It was very strange being there knowing all the drama that happened there.

After we were done taking in the site we headed to Penn station and then home. It was a long but memorable day!