After much debate and back-and-forth, Hubs and I decided to brave the crowds and go to the inauguration swearing in ceremony. It’s a first time for me since moving to the DC area, and something I didn’t want to take for granted only to never do despite living so close (kind of like riding the cable cars in SF, bc seriously who rides those besides tourists).
So, we went. Getting there by metro even from our neck of the woods (thankfully we have a metro stop really close to our house) was not bad at all. The trains were crowded, but not unbearably so. And when people bumped into me, they actually said “sorry” or “excuse me.” Blink. Blink. Blink. Blink. Blink.
There were some compromises made between me and hubs to attend such a crowded event. One was that we weren’t camping out overnight or doing any such crazy stunt just to secure a spot close to the action. And the second was that we weren’t going to attend the parade (too cold, an insane checkpoint line, next to no chance of seeing much anyway). We were perfectly fine arriving just before the ceremonies began and standing in the way back near the television broadcast stands.
The scene on the national mall was electric. A palpable feeling of excitement and hope and being part of something bigger and just wanting the best for a country you love. I don’t care who you voted for or what your views on politics or the president, as I’m pretty much a skeptic when it comes to all that. But if you were there, in that exact moment on the national mall, among a million waving American flags, you felt pretty damn proud to be American.
PS – check out this awesome high-res photo of the inauguration. If you were lucky (or maybe crazy) enough to be close to the Capitol, you can actually zoom in and tag yourself. We were nowhere near this close. If you know the layout of the national mall, on one end is the capitol building and on the waaaaay opposite end is the Washington Memorial. We were right by the Washington Memorial.
PPS – I don’t know how it came across on tv, but Kelly Clarkson sounded pretty amazing from the National Mall.
camera: shot in jpg w/panasonic lumix ts-3
processing: photoshop using totally rad and afterglow actions (fyi the afterglow actions are free)
