Well, we made it! What an odyssey!! Our alarm went off at 5 am and in my sleepy stupor i tried to snooze but Nikki snapped me out of it. We were on the road in the dark by 5:30. Rt. 66 was pretty clear until about two miles from the Vienna Metro station. At which point we ran into bumper to bumper traffic. We had the local radio station on and they were really hyping the parking situation and crowds. They were saying some smaller metro stops were filled to parking capacity already at 6:20am and insinuating that Vienna and others were near capacity. In order to exit rt 66 you had to be in the far right lane, which wasn't moving. Nikki suggested pulling out to skip some people. I eventually did this and thank goodness I did! I managed to sneak back into line at the exit...it must have saved close to an hour of waiting and quite possibly our ability to park!
So we pulled in and got a spot. The metro was supposed to be charging 4 bucks cash but apparently they abandoned this and we pulled right in free of charge. We waited on line about 30 minutes just to enter the station. When we got on the train it was already standing room only! The ride in was certainly the low point of the day. UGH! 2 of the slowest hours standing in awkward positions in the most crowded train i have ever scene!
All sorts of metro stops on or near the mall were closed due to over crowding or security so we ended up exiting early at MetroCenter...we didn't particularly mind it anyway; we were dying to get off the train. We started our trek following the sea of people to the Mall. We took lots of pictures of the crowds, you'd think the city was evacuating or something, crazy! But the one aspect of the crowds that stayed constant from beginning to end was their positive demeanor. We never saw anyone being rude, pushing, yelling, fighting or vandalizing. Everyone was just happy to take their time and experience this event with like minded people. Everyone was patient, happy, excited and friendly.
We finally made it to the edge of the Mall at the Washington Monument.(about 19th St) I think it must have been around 11am by this point. There we ran into a reporter with the Financial Times. She interviewed us for at least 10 minutes and we were excited to answer her questions! Our reward was some of my comments showing up in their inaugural report!! Too bad we both didn't make it, Nikki said some good things. Financial Times interview link (See paragraph 4th from the bottom.)
We ended up staying put immediately left of the Washington Monument facing the Capital. There was a jumbo tron and sound system so we were able to hear and see everything. It was funny experiencing this with thousands of others. Whenever Obama or some prominent Democrat was shown cheers would erupt from the crowd. As soon as Bush or Cheney would be shown booos would fly.
During his oath the crowd was quiet as a mouse up to the "So help me God", at which point the crowd went wild! Again the crowd was quiet and still when he gave his speech. I'm not really sure how to explain the experience other than it was extremely powerful and memorable.
SO...then the speech was over and the hard part began...now what do we do! We followed the flow of humanity up all the way to Georgetown. Many streets were closed by the National Guard so we were really forced up there. We ended up having a much needed rest at Zed's for lunch. We then browsed a small bookstore to let the crowds thin and then by about 3:30pm we made our attempt for the metro thinking the crowds may have thinned...uhhh no. We couldn't even enter the system, there were huge lines to enter at the Foggy Bottom and Farragut stops. In desperation we attempted to take the Metro Bus to Rosslyn but after waiting about 35 minutes for a bus that's supposed to come every 15 minutes we made another trek to the McPherson stop. There we found luck, no lines at all!!! I have no idea why it was so uncrowded, the other stops still had lines above ground!
With the memory of the morning still fresh in our mind we were determined to get a seat for the ride back to Vienna. However, every train that came by going to Vienna was standing room only. Nikki had the bright idea to go the opposite direction, go above all the activity and then hop onto the empty train near the beginning of the line. This worked perfectly! There were plenty of seats. By the time we made it to Vienna at 7:15pm it was close to being as packed as it was this morning.
By 7:45pm we were in our room again. We went over to Golden Corral for dinner again and now we can relax! Phew what a day! It flew by and is an event that Nikki and I will never forget!! It's something that we wouldn't look forward to doing anytime soon, but are definitely happy we went! :)
Tomorrow it's a change in our Obama theme. We're off to Manassas National Battlefield and then home.
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