The rally!
Since all of you have managed to write up your rally experiences, I suppose I should chime in with mine. I generally avoid all crowds and don’t go near the National Mall for any large event. I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve been down there for anything like this - Clinton’s second inauguration, Clinton’s second inauguration festival (he had lectures and all sorts of learning activities the whole weekend before) and Bush’s first pre-inaugural concert. Yeah that’s it - no fourth of July, no Memorial Day, no other massive meet-ups. However, the second this was announced, I knew I was going. It was just not to be missed!
The goat and I got up relatively early and packed some sandwiches, water, snacks, reading. We were glad we had our smartrip cards, as even early the lines to buy fare cards were crazy!long. Shortly after getting to the platform a train came; it was crowded but not overly so. We were in game day Michigan gear and I was surrounded by extremely polite OSU fans (who had just flown in for the rally - literally. They got on at National Airport and were there only for a few hours after the rally). They said: ‘one of the rules was not to be a douche, so we’re not going to say anything!’ LOL. It was actually pretty cool and set the tone for the day.
We got to the mall and it was starting to fill up pretty good but we didn’t push our way forward as much as we could - just went far enough forward and found a nice open spot to put down our blanket and let people fill around us. We were right in the center, two TV screens back. We couldn’t see anything without the screen, but could see the stage itself and had a good view of everything that happened via the TV screen. So we just chilled; ate our lunch, tried reading books, but mostly just people watched, sign watched and chatted with each other. My favorite sign = “Bring Back Twilight” The goat’s favorite: “Soylent Green is People (yummy, yummy people)” Our favorite moment of the rally: R2!! (followed by Cat Stevens) Our least favorite: when we realized we didn’t DVR the rally. *headdesk*
After we hung out on our blanket for a while longer and ate some more snacks; then headed over to attempt to get a cab. We finally gave up on that and wandered back to the metro. Luckily by then the crowds had dwindled (well, relatively) and we managed to get on a train pretty quickly and headed home to nap before watching the Michigan disaster of a football game.
Overall we had a fantastic rally experience. Everyone was polite and calm and friendly. If all large crowds were as awesome as that, I wouldn’t avoid interacting with people as much as I do!
The goat and I got up relatively early and packed some sandwiches, water, snacks, reading. We were glad we had our smartrip cards, as even early the lines to buy fare cards were crazy!long. Shortly after getting to the platform a train came; it was crowded but not overly so. We were in game day Michigan gear and I was surrounded by extremely polite OSU fans (who had just flown in for the rally - literally. They got on at National Airport and were there only for a few hours after the rally). They said: ‘one of the rules was not to be a douche, so we’re not going to say anything!’ LOL. It was actually pretty cool and set the tone for the day.
We got to the mall and it was starting to fill up pretty good but we didn’t push our way forward as much as we could - just went far enough forward and found a nice open spot to put down our blanket and let people fill around us. We were right in the center, two TV screens back. We couldn’t see anything without the screen, but could see the stage itself and had a good view of everything that happened via the TV screen. So we just chilled; ate our lunch, tried reading books, but mostly just people watched, sign watched and chatted with each other. My favorite sign = “Bring Back Twilight” The goat’s favorite: “Soylent Green is People (yummy, yummy people)” Our favorite moment of the rally: R2!! (followed by Cat Stevens) Our least favorite: when we realized we didn’t DVR the rally. *headdesk*
After we hung out on our blanket for a while longer and ate some more snacks; then headed over to attempt to get a cab. We finally gave up on that and wandered back to the metro. Luckily by then the crowds had dwindled (well, relatively) and we managed to get on a train pretty quickly and headed home to nap before watching the Michigan disaster of a football game.
Overall we had a fantastic rally experience. Everyone was polite and calm and friendly. If all large crowds were as awesome as that, I wouldn’t avoid interacting with people as much as I do!