Okay, so I am going to try to keep this happy but some moments are not happy. It was a really great experience that a few good twitter friends reminded me of today after the fact. (thanks Joaovsantos, potassium, sitakatherine, anneso87, spicedogs, alpearson, peeler, katekintail, angelsteph, you rock)
Monday
I had a doctor's appointment in the morning which was my first mistake! Then I went to my mom's house. My brother's friend Connor was asleep because he was feeling sick but I had said I would take him with me. I woke him up and he got ready. We went to the metro and he needed a metro pass. There was a line to get passes. All reasons I didn't get downtown till about 1 pm. I was supposed to go to Cannon House Office Building (all the senators and congressmen/women have offices in different buildings. either on the senate or congressional side of the Capital. there is your mini-DC lesson!) I was told to pick up my tickets between 9 am and 4 pm.
The Cannon building is a big building (will post pictures later). I found a door close to the Capital SW Metro station. I followed the line to find the end. The line wrapped around the building and the city block and went at least half way down the other side of the building. There was a second door but that line went at least all the way down the block. I hopped at the end of the line and sent Connor on his way. I had podcasts to keep my company (thank goodness). I sent my first ping message about 1:06 pm. The line moved slowly. Around 2:15 or so, I was at the second door. Around this time, people in line start talking to each other. I found a few people were told to come before 2 and so a few people started calling up to the offices. I thought what the heck. Its worth a try. I called and left a message. Other people were told they needed to come by 2 pm or come after 1 pm. Everyone had a different time. A few staffers brought down the tickets to people. Mostly southern states, Florida, North Carolina, Alabama and the best not southern was shoot, a northern state like Minnesota or North Dakota. (can't remember which). We figured they had a few people left and wanted to go home. [the we is the people near me in line, not the mouse in my pocket ;) ] When I heard back from the Congressman's office where my tickets were, they said would be there till everyone came or else they would call me.
Around 3 or so, we were about half way down the block. I started to get really cold. i only had on two layers, two pairs of socks, tennis shoes, and cotton gloves. I know bad Maggie. but I didn't think I would be there very long. My hands and feet were freezing. The kind people near me said go for a walk, we'll hold your place. They totally rocked and i didn't get one's name. I should have. We were all really nice to each other and held places when need be.
I finally got to the door at 4:30ish (no watch, times are approximate). The door was a small one barely enough room for two people to walk in shoulder to shoulder. To get in, we had to take off our coats and take off our shoes. This is why it took so long. Once I got through security, it was super quick. I picked up two blue tickets (important for actual Inauguration day). I waited for almost 4 hours. Connor met me at the Metro and we went back to Mom's. And we went to bed late. Did I mention Connor had been sick and Dan was starting to feel sick?
Tuesday, January 20th - The big Day. (Happy Birthday Cliff)
Mom woke up at 6 and woke me up. I realized I forgot to set an alarm. I was mad at myself. Rushing around to get ready. Currently, we will be Dan, (brother) Connor (brother's HS friend) and Jim (my friend from college) Gates open at 9. Music starts at 10:30. Ceremony starts at 11:30. My mom drove us to the Metro and picked up us. She rocks.
We got in line at the Vienna Metro at about 6:45 am. We were on a train and moving by 7. The train stopped along the way at the stations and between stations because there was a back log of trains going into the city. We were talking to people from Texas and two people from Alaska who weren't dressed in so many layers as the rest of us. Also a woman who works in a tux shop downtown and she worked on VP-elect (at the time) Biden's tux. We all felt bad she had to go to work and commute in with all the tourist people.
While on the train, we keep hearing announcements different stations were closed. Jim and Connor didn't have tickets, so they got off at McPherson Sq. which is a bit away from the mall but we figured they could walk closer. We were supposed to get off at Federal Center SW, which was closed and reopened at least twice on the ride down. The two stops before that were closed. As we got closer, Federal Center was closed. So Dan and I pretty much had to go to Capital South. (we could have gone back the other way which might have helped, but the stops could have closed again)
Capital South was super busy. The stations had to be closed because there were too many people on the platform. The workers at Capital South rocked though. There was a lady on a bull horn saying/singing "Keep it moving" and the whole crowd was chanting too. So cool.
We got above ground and followed the signs to blue gate at around 9 am. There were volunteers to help direct us. We saw some lines. There were two lines - one for orange and one for blue. We got in the blue line. It turned out the blue line wasn't really an official line, just people in a line. There was a crowd that was moving faster than our line. We should have gotten out of the line. The line finally moved with toward the crowd. We start moving past the semi-line and just follow small signs to the blue gate (pictures coming soon) We get to a point where we are on a road and there was people from curb to curb. We can see a traffic type sign saying blue gate to the left. Also from here, we can see the orange line. The gates for people with tickets opened at 9 am. The orange line starts moving. Blue stays put. Its about 9:30. We slowly move forward taking like three steps and stopping. Orange keeps moving. Blue stays put. We heard there was a medical emergency and some EMTs came to help.
People are doing chants. This lady says "Givemee an O, I've got your O. Givemee a B, I've got your B. Givemee an A. I've got your A. Givemee at M. i've got your M. Givemee an A. I've got your A. OBAMA! OBAMA!" Then she starts a second time and she says O B M and everyone starts laughing, all in good fun. It was great.
Around 10:30, there is no more orange line. We are close to the sign. We see Jessie Jackson over by where the orange line was. Blue line still isn't moving. Around 10:45, as we got closer to the fences, we see people leaving the line. They say the line is supposed to close at 11 and there is no way we are getting in. We also heard that a scanner broke in the security for blue line. We heard lots of things. Around 11:15 or so, the line starts to really move. We get really excited and think we are going to get in. Then the crowd starts to get really crazy. People start pushing and as the line was pretty nice earlier, there is almost no room to move. We never heard anything from an official volunteer or a police officer. Everything we heard was hearsay.
This part is hard to describe and I didn't take any pictures. Basically the blue gate was on this one street and the line we were in was intersecting with that street in a T. But where we were there were barriers and trees and bushes and a ton of people. We were so close to the blue gate but couldn't get there. By now its about 11:25. We hear a few different things. Some of the same we heard before. One thing we heard (just from people not anyone official) that people with Silver tickets jumped the gates or something and ended up in the Blue area so there wasn't room for us.
Basically, the crowd was getting really ugly. People were starting to be mean to each other and pushing which they weren't before. Dan and I decided to give up. It was clear we weren't getting anywhere close to see anything happening on the mall. I was so sad. I didn't think that after two hours on the Metro and 2 and half hours in line wouldn't get me to see the Inauguration. People start walking back toward Capital South. Close to the metro, there were a few restaurants. I convince Dan that we should see if we can watch it in side. We go in a Thi restaurant. We go in about 11:45. The ceremony had started. We stood by the door and then knelt by the door watching. We moved away from the door after a while. We saw President Obama being sworn in and watched the speech. It was really great. The reaction from everyone there was great.
After the President finished, we left the restaurant and got on the metro. It took us about an hour to get home.
I will admit I was really really sad that I wasn't on the mall for the Inauguration. As we walked away from the stupid evil blue line, I cried.
We might have stayed around DC if Dan has been feeling better. On the Metro, we talked to some people with blue tickets who didn't get in either.
Some numbers I heard later. (please don't quote me on these, this is from my memory) there were about 1.4 million people on the mall. 300,000 to 400,000 [edit - so the Washington Post says it was 3,000 to 4,000, i was off by a little :) ]people were not able to get on the mall and there were 100,000 on the parade route. I was one of those who couldn't make it on the mall.
I have learned one huge lesson from the past two days - if something opens at 9 am or 4 am ( when Metro opened today), get there when it opens. If we had left earlier, maybe we could have gotten on the mall.
Connor and Jim got to the mall and watched everything from the Jumbo-trons. They were close to the Washington Monument.
Thank you again to the friends Joaovsantos, potassium, sitakatherine, anneso87, spicedogs, alpearson, peeler, katekintail, angelsteph and Kim Johnson, Dale (my mom's cousin) Kristin and Erin (my cousins )who wrote on my facebook wall.
I didn't turn off SMS while downtown it was hard enough to get the messages I sent out out. I had to resend each multiple times. But your words mean the world to me.
So there we go. The story before the tweets/pings.
I will do my best to add pictures and other things (maps) to help you see all the drama of the day. (Remind me if I don't get to it by Sunday)
I am so glad this day has happened. I am so excited we have a new president and I was in the same town when he swore his oath of office. Yay for President Obama!
PS - haven't figured out pictures. I might put them on a facebook and link to that. Here is the article and the video
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/20/AR2009012003362.html?hpid=topnews
When you see the big overhead thing saying exit, I was back behind that and to the left. I didn't get as close as these people did.