Obama's inauguration as first term as president
Posted: Sun, 25 Jan 2009, 16:54:00, GMT | 1289 views Share
Troy and I attended Barack Obama's inauguration in Washington DC on January 20, 2009. The atmosphere was amazing, the massive crowds all shared a common optimism about the country's future, and we all thoroughly enjoyed being part of history in the making. All of the DC metro area (and much of the world it seemed like) was awash with Obama-mania. The man could do no wrong - at least until the actual swearing-in ceremony! (For those of you who don't know, there was a stumble during the actual swearing in (video clip here), with the word "faithfully" misplaced, so they actually did a second swearing-in the next day in private - just to ensure there'd be no argument later on that he isn't valid!)
The crowds were estimated in the millions and this satellite image of the area from the US Capitol up to the Washington Monument gives you a good feel as to the size. The dark clusters are people and the pattern was created due to the spacing of the giant television monitors - you can see that people aren't evenly spaced out - everyone wanted a great view of the event, so the crowds gathered around the screens. We did not have tickets to the restricted area (which was close to the Capitol building where the ceremony was going to take place), so we headed towards the base of the Washington Monument and had great views of a screen and plenty of crowd enthusiasm to go around.
Did I mention that the weather was below freezing? We took this picture over the weekend of an outdoor fountain that had mostly frozen over. As you may imagine, getting to the outdoor ceremony before 8am (many people had been there since 4 or 5am!) and then standing outside until the ceremony started at noon was quite chilly.
The hotels all around the area were completely sold out, but we did manage to get a room at the Rosslyn / Arlington Hotel Palomar. While we were initially disappointed that we weren't in DC proper and closer to the action, this slightly further away hotel turned out to be a great benefit. We didn't have to fight crowds on the metro as much, and there was a shuttle than ran every 10 minutes into Georgetown for $1.50 - and everything was walkable from Georgetown. So it turned out to be a great, although accidental, place to stay. The only crowds we ever had to contend with were those at the actual ceremony.
On Tuesday evening after the inauguration, we went to a party at the Mayflower Hotel with my brother, Michael, his girlfriend, Victoria, and one of her friends. Sadly, it clearly wasn't an important enough party for Obama to stop by and say hi, but we did have some fun performers do some songs and make appearances, including Cindi Lauper, Thelma Houston, Rufus Wainwright, Melissa Etheridge, and Sir Ian McKellen.
And to end on a jovial note, the world awaits to see what type of puppy the Obamas bring into the White House. This three-minute clip does a nice parody of the importance of the puppy to all of us.