Despite my sister’s desire for us to go to bed early and get up early and get to The Mall early for optimal vieweng, we all slept in and didn’t leave until 9am. Good thing to, as we would have been even more frozen than we were had we left earlier. Chloe was whiny and made me quite miserable. Camille could understand the importance of the moment and dealt with the boredom of waiting and chilliness of the morning.
The whole way there, we could see crowds ahead of us and crowds behind us. The streets were filled with people who were clearly very happy to be in Washington DC for this momentous occasion. We entered The Mall west of the WW II memorial. Everyone was happy, friendly and excited. The jersey barriers were set up in a way to make crossing 17th very difficult, but people were patient and didn’t push. People let others go in order not to separate groups. It was an amazing feeling.
We walked over towards the Washington Monument and found a nice spot near a jumbotron. I took off my vest from under my coat so the girls could sit down. They had some snacks and Rob gave them some handwarmer packs. Chloe kept complaining about the cold, which made me very cranky with her. I sure wish she would be willing to wear extra layers.
The ceremony started a bit late, but it was exciting to be there with the crowds. At first we couldn’t hear the audio very well, but then the volume was turned up and we heard much better! The musical selection was underwhelming. I love the “Simple Gifts” song; but it was hard to hear and did nothing to stir the crowd. It was disturbing to hear everyone boo President Bush. I think that the ceremony deserved more respect than that. He has already been “booed” by being voted out of office. President Obama himself seems to understand being humble and showing respect, and I hope others will learn from his example. The only disturbance in the crowd was a group of people who wanted a child to be removed from the shoulders of a parent; putting a kid up that high blocked the view of many.
After the swearing in, we left with the crowds. As we headed out, we heard the National Anthem and realized that the ceromy was not actually over. People were just so cold that once the main event was over they wanted to be gone. The barriers had been placed in way that really impeded us from leaving, but eventually we made it across 17th, having had to climb over a jersey barrier.
As we waited to get out onto Constitution, Marine 1, renamed Executive 1, flew overhead of us. The crowd began to wave goodbye and some even broke out into the “Hey, Hey, Goodbye Song.” The streets had various piles of trash — most popular trash today was coffee cups. We walked past MPs trying to convince us to stay on Virginia and walked right into the huge line of coach buses.
After lunch at the apartment, Rob helped Suze go to the Foggy Bottom station, which was so crowded that the line to go down the escalators was enormous. She did make it down the elevator and onto the train and to the airport. A bit later, Barbara headed out to go to the parade. She managed to see the Obamas walk by. The crowd all left as soon as they passed; people were just too cold to stay and see the rest of the parade.
