January 19-21, 2009

So I was sitting in my room on a Monday morning, looking forward to a relaxing MLK Day, when my housemates burst in.

"We're going to the inauguration!" they shrieked.

My jaw literally dropped. "You mean . . . the actual ceremony? In DC??"

"YES!" they screamed, halfway demented.

"But . . . we don't have tickets. You know you're just going to end up watching it on TV in a bar somewhere, along with the entire rest of the country."

"DOESN'T MATTER!" their voices, if possible, at an even higher pitch. Quoth my housemate: "I went to the gym this morning and I was wearing my Obama t-shirt and the whole time I'm exercising I'm looking at him in the mirror and I suddenly thought 'Why am I not there?? How can I not go? I need to be able to tell my grandchildren I was there!!' ARE YOU COMING."

"Augh," I said. ".....yes."

"YAY!!!"

So four of us hastily packed overnight bags and munchies, piled into the car, and set off for the 8-hour drive from Ann Arbor to Baltimore on Monday afternoon. We didn't want to deal with the absolute insanity of driving straight into DC, so we decided to take the 11:30 p.m. train from Baltimore. We finally made it, ran into the station, and . . . the train was delayed an hour. AN HOUR.

Hahahahaha. This is why Americans have no faith in trains.

The train finally arrived an hour and a half late and we got to DC about 2:30 a.m., wherein I may have squealed upon catching a glimpse of the Capitol from Union Station. This is going to sound crazy but I had never in my life been to DC before - or Baltimore either, for that matter. I've never been to New York, Boston or Philadelphia, either. My housemate from Baltimore was scandalized, but I've just never had occasion to go and it's a long trip to get there. I’m from rural northern Michigan, which is not on the way to anywhere except rural southern Canada. If anything, this trip to the East Coast - and seeing how relatively close all these big cities are to each other - made me realize just how far out of the way my hometown is, heh.

We caught a taxi to Georgetown, where we crashed at a friend of a friend’s house. Georgetown – what little I saw of it in the dead of night – was gorgeous. I found it very reminiscent of London’s Notting Hill and Portobello Market neighborhood. At 6 a.m. we were back outside walking to the Mall. I fluttered in excitement again over sighting the Lincoln Memorial and the Washington Monument. The Monument looked particularly spectacular against the rosy golden dawn sky.

As we made our way from Georgetown streams of people began to trickle in from every direction, coming together in greater and greater numbers. I had a brief flashback to Football Saturdays in Ann Arbor and all the students converging on the stadium. But this wasn’t 100,000 people – this was 2 million. Two million!

By 8 a.m. we were crammed deep within the crowd and ended up watching the unfolding ceremony on one of the jumbo screens for the next four hours, literally unable to move. The sun eventually came out but my lord it was cold. Definitely below freezing. My toes were numb in minutes and my legs ached from standing so long. I think everyone around us was pretty miserable – but we were there! At the Inauguration! No discomfort could compare.

It felt absolutely incredible to be part of that huge throng - everyone was so happy and worked up and so Democrat, heh. There were cheers for Jimmy Carter . . . cheers for Al Gore . . . HUGE cheers for Bill Clinton . . . near silence for Papa Bush, and universal boos for Dubya. Yes!! It was awesome. And everyone went wild when Obama finally appeared. Volunteers had passed out little American flags and we all waved them madly and cheered ourselves hoarse at any sighting of the new First Family.

Clearly getting out of such a mob was near impossible, but we sucked in and plowed through in order to catch our train. When we finally squeezed free of the crowd I was a mess – coat all unbuttoned, scarf askew, sweater twisted sideways. Then began a veritable odyssey around extensive security barricades just to reach the station. So very many streets were closed, with police and FBI and Secret Service and snipers everywhere. Let me tell you, racing 20-some blocks on stiff frozen legs is not fun. As I staggered along the sidewalks I’m sure I looked like a casualty that had been trampled by the crowd.

We caught our train at last and had a lovely lunch and mini-tour of Baltimore. As we looked down over the waterfront I mused aloud “Hey, this really reminds me of Barcelona,” and my housemate exclaimed “Barcelona’s waterfront was modeled on Baltimore’s!” So that was rather exciting. I love the idea that I’ve been to enough international cities that I can recognize their urban planning, heh.

I helped drive home and we got back to Ann Arbor about 1:30 a.m. Wednesday morning. All in all it was like a 30-hour trip of near insanity, totally impulsive and spontaneous and madcap, but somehow it still worked out okay and I'm so glad we went. It really was important just to be there, to be part of the people, and I loved experiencing the crowd and just how happy everyone is that Obama is in and Bush is out. I was so angry and disgusted in '04 when Bush was reelected, but over the past year I’ve regained my faith in the U.S. and what Americans really want and stand for. There's still so much to be proud of about the U.S. and being American, and I definitely saw many reasons why that Tuesday morning.