Change is so sweet

I thought I was done blogging about my adventure in DC but I couldn't
resist one last post. I bought these chocolate Obama lollipops at the
Baltimore airport but I got the last two--my three children will have
to share.

Inauguration Parade

Because of crowds, visitors to DC pretty much had to decide whether they were going to try to see some of the Inaugural Parade or be on the mall for the Inauguration Ceremony. Since we had tickets to the Ceremony, we forewent the parade. After the poetry recitation and benediction, we were able to walk quickly and easily to Union Station. We bought a few souveniers:


And then we were on a train outbound within minutes. Unbelievably we were back to Kathy's house before 2 p.m. We decided to go to a restaurant for some lunch and to watch some of the parade. The balloons say "01.20.2009 Obama's First Day".

We are now watching the end of the parade at home and are about to nap before going to Kathy's sister's for dinner. We leave for home tomorrow morning. I hope you enjoyed the blogging. And I hope that we all heed President Obama's words "that as the world grows smaller, our common humanity shall reveal itself; and that America must play its role in ushering in a new era of peace."

Witness to History

It's cliche to say, but we really felt that we were part of an unbelievable historic moment. This was during the inaugural address. If you enlarge the photo, you can see President Obama speaking at the podium:

More photos at the swearing-in

Here are some more photos from the swearing-in ceremony. This was during all the entrances. Note Hillary and Bill on the Jumbotron:


I couldn't see the podium because I am too short. I watched the Jumbotron, but Andy watched the podium. Here is the oath:

We tried to see how far down the mall the crowds stretched. My camera couldn't really record it. (See the Washington Monument; I think the crowds extended beyond that even.)

Here are the crowds on the Jumbotron:

Snipers

If you enlarge this picture and look at the roof of this building, you can see a sniper on the roof of one of the office buildings next to the Capitol.

Military on Constitution Avenue

As mentioned earlier our tickets were "yellow" in the standing section. You can see that the entrance was right at Constitution Avenue here. As we came through, we saw members of the military lined up all the way down Constitution Avenue for as far as the eye could see and I got this great shot of them.

Waiting for the swearing-in

So we left the ball last night a little after 1 a.m. When we got to the Metro station and were waiting for a train, there was a spontaneous eruption of "Obama! Obama!" chants with the post-party crowds. We got home to Maryland at 2 a.m. and planned to rise at 6 a.m. so we only got 4 hours of sleep. We had a pretty uneventful trip into the city on the Metro (given what we were expecting from news reports). We did, however, have a long wait to get through security (blogged about earlier). There was one point that got really crowded. A claustrophobe would have been having a very tough time. But for the most part, the crowd was civil and polite to each other with little pushing and shoving. Here is another photo from the wait (the sign in the background was from a labor union):