So, I know I’m super way behind on this and that Obama has been President for like, what, a month now, but please forgive me because my internet is SLOW. It seriously takes about a year for one photograph to upload on my miserable connection. I don’t even know why it’s like this. We pay for internet and the Verizon connection speed tester says we have lightning fast speed but Verizon LIES. Anyway. Inauguration.
So, as you probably gathered from the post previous to this one, Russell and I headed down to Washington D.C. at the end of January to witness the historical inauguration of Barack Obama. It was pretty awesome. Luckily, a few friends of ours from Buffalo had come down to the city as well and we met up with them at the actual event. Our location was pretty perfect, too. Upon our arrival to Washington, people kept spewing facts at us about how many people were going to be at the inauguration (a bajillion), the proportion of porti-potties to people (1 for every 400), and the standing space that would be available for each person (roughly the size of a folded newspaper). I was totally down for the whole suffering aspect of the experience, it was a historical moment, after all. Luckily, we didn’t have to suffer. Instead of waiting at obnoxiously long security checkpoints with thousands of people, Russell and I met up with our Buffalo pals towards the end of the mall at the Lincoln Memorial. At that point, we bypassed all security and were able to sit comfortably in front of a massive jumbotron the entire time. The crowds were hardly as large as they were on the other side of the Washington Monument and we were a mere twenty feet away from about a hundred vacant porti-potties.
The only somewhat unfortunate aspect of the nearly seven-hour wait for the Inauguration was the freezing cold temperatures. Despite wearing nearly five layers of clothing and wrapping my head entirely in a scarf, my entire body was pretty much numb after sitting in the cold for an hour. We were forced to buy about twenty packages of heat packets, stuff them in any place they would fit, and form a giant pile of cuddling bodies in order to keep warm. Still, the entire experience was so much fun that I would have endured much harsher conditions to be there.
