blah blah blah your mom
So, I went to Obama's inauguration. I know that happened a week a ago but all the catching up with school and things was really time consuming. As such you get to hear about it now, when fewer people care.
So I went with my roommate Tori and her "friend of the family" Mike. He is super nice and kind like a modern/old hippie. Which is confusing as he used to be a lawyer and now works with Tori's hot mom doing something along the lines of insurance for the company. Anyway he HATES Bush and every time the former president was mentioned he mutter "fuck Bush" or something equally vehement. He was ironically at the inauguration of Nixon way back when (whom he also hates with a passion) and Obama is the second president he has seen swear in.
We arrived on Thursday night and on Friday we went to the Capital building and had a tour and then had to go to our Senators office to get passes to look at the senatorial gallery. It looked really nice, and since the senate was in session we got to here a proposal about a program for teaching 1 to 3 year old kids. Although is was a free for all talk about anything day because of the new congress. We also checked out the Library of Congress which is epic. Incidentally I accidentally snuck a knife into the capital building. I mean that I remembered my big hunting knife and took it out and left it outside before going in to be metal detected and have my coat go through the x-ray machine and everything. I went through approximately 8 metal detectors upon going through all of the various official buildings and no one noticed and no alarm went off. Though Mike had to take off his shoes 6 times overall and his belt twice. Later when we got back to the hotel (after I retrieved my big knife) I discovered that lost inside my jacket (due to the giant whole in my inside breast pocket) was my smaller knife which is inordinately sharp. No one noticed. . .not even me who had forgotten that I had two knives on me at the time.
On Saturday we checked out all sorts of monuments and visited the Arlington cemetery and saw the changing of the guard at the tomb of the unknown soldier. That ceremony happens every single hour on the hour even when the cemetery is closed and no one else is around. I was wondering what would happen if someone tried to go past the roped off area when some woman tried to step over it. The guard on duty whipped around and yelled "MA'AM PLEASE REMAIN BEHIND THE BOUNDARY!!!" and then about faced back to his original position. It happened later right as the two guards were showing up to perform the changing ceremony only is was some kid and the guy still startled everyone by yelling at the kid in an enraged sort of voice.
On Sunday was the inaugural concert which consisted of standing up for around 4 or 5 hours. But like two of those hours was awesome concert times with some speakers and famous people performing songs everyone had heard of/know most of the words to. It actually kind of turned into a sing along with the whole crowd for many of the songs. Bruce Springsteen came out and did his song "The Rising" which a huge choir and he was all over the place. Then "lean on me" and "Change gonna come" and a bunch of others. U2 was there and they did a couple songs, though the group of sorority girls who I happened to be standing next too wouldn't shut up about how they wanted Beyonce to show up (and she did at the end for like one song), but one girl actually said "who are those other guys on stage with Bono?" I was just amazed by their stupidity. Usher was there, and Stevie Wonder, John Mellancamp, Mary J Blige, Jon Bon Jovi, and also Garth Brooks who was actually pretty good in his three songs (because he wasn't warbling around). There were actualy a bunch of other people I can't name all of right now but there were also several speakers like Tom Hanks and Jamie Foxx and Denzel Washington. It doesn't really matter because they showed the concert on tv and you probably already saw it. My favorite part though was the second to last song where Pete Seeger who is seriously 90 years old showed up in a flannel shirt and jeans (despite the fact that it was 20ish degrees outside) with his banjo. He then proceeded to lead the entire crowd of 450,000 people crushed together between the Lincoln memorial and the Washington monument in "This Land Is Your Land" and everyone actually sang along! Me especially. This was one of the most patriotic/harmonious moments of my entire life.
On Monday we went to the Smithsonian Natural history museum which was awesome because I am a science nerd all over the place. Also we went to the movies with Mike's friend and saw "Gran Torino" which was basically Clint Eastwood being the most badass he has ever been the whole movie. I laughed, was saddened, made generally content, and enraged multiple times throughout the film. Suffice to say Clint Eastwood who directed, produce, and starred is awesome.
Tuesday was the inauguration. We woke up at 4 am and got to the mall at around 5 am. We got close enough to see the people on the front of the capital building and even though we couldn't make out faces clearly we were also very close to a well placed "Jumbotron" (seriously who named those things?) and could see a close up of everything. We waited until 11:30 (which is close to six hours of just standing) but around 9 am they replayed the concert that happened and even though everyone had already seen it either actually there or on tv we were all as excited as if it were live happening for the first time. The whole crowd still danced around and sang along to all the songs even though we had been standing for so long and were all tired. Then the inauguration actually happened and the swearing in was adorable, and the chief justice messed up the beginning of the presidential oath, but it was saved eventually so I have no ill will (though Rush Limbaugh was calling for Obama to be removed from office because of improper swearing in). That whole event was also one of the most patriotic/harmonious events of my life. When it was over they had blocked off 8 or so of the streets parallel to the parade route (which we didn't go too but was so packed they wouldn't let anymore people in at all) so they funneled all of the people out of the mall through the smallest opening possible into a smaller area than the mall with an even smaller opening. We were then directed down a street which was closed off and were told to turn around which was impossible due to the crushing amounts of people who were still being herded towards us from the opposite direction. We eventually got back to our room 3 hours later, at which point we were all aching weak senior citizens especially Tori.
There are more things that happened like Chinatown (not too interesting but the place we went to see gran torino) and the place Lincoln died (smallest bed for a 6'6" man ever) and all the walking/ delicious food that happened. Plus I went on the subway for the first time and it was fun but we had to listen to Tori gripe about how Japan has a better system/no one talks on the subway at all. Oh and the Obama souvenirs were being sold on every street corn and consisted of watches, t-shirts, pins, buttons, condoms, sneakers, necklaces, postcards, posters, frames, hats, scarves, and even Obama hand puppets (one of which I gave to Brittany for watching Bamf, even though she refused to touch him at all).
I'm out of time and need to get some work done, so I may elaborate on a forgotten something later. See you dudes on the flipside.
So I went with my roommate Tori and her "friend of the family" Mike. He is super nice and kind like a modern/old hippie. Which is confusing as he used to be a lawyer and now works with Tori's hot mom doing something along the lines of insurance for the company. Anyway he HATES Bush and every time the former president was mentioned he mutter "fuck Bush" or something equally vehement. He was ironically at the inauguration of Nixon way back when (whom he also hates with a passion) and Obama is the second president he has seen swear in.
We arrived on Thursday night and on Friday we went to the Capital building and had a tour and then had to go to our Senators office to get passes to look at the senatorial gallery. It looked really nice, and since the senate was in session we got to here a proposal about a program for teaching 1 to 3 year old kids. Although is was a free for all talk about anything day because of the new congress. We also checked out the Library of Congress which is epic. Incidentally I accidentally snuck a knife into the capital building. I mean that I remembered my big hunting knife and took it out and left it outside before going in to be metal detected and have my coat go through the x-ray machine and everything. I went through approximately 8 metal detectors upon going through all of the various official buildings and no one noticed and no alarm went off. Though Mike had to take off his shoes 6 times overall and his belt twice. Later when we got back to the hotel (after I retrieved my big knife) I discovered that lost inside my jacket (due to the giant whole in my inside breast pocket) was my smaller knife which is inordinately sharp. No one noticed. . .not even me who had forgotten that I had two knives on me at the time.
On Saturday we checked out all sorts of monuments and visited the Arlington cemetery and saw the changing of the guard at the tomb of the unknown soldier. That ceremony happens every single hour on the hour even when the cemetery is closed and no one else is around. I was wondering what would happen if someone tried to go past the roped off area when some woman tried to step over it. The guard on duty whipped around and yelled "MA'AM PLEASE REMAIN BEHIND THE BOUNDARY!!!" and then about faced back to his original position. It happened later right as the two guards were showing up to perform the changing ceremony only is was some kid and the guy still startled everyone by yelling at the kid in an enraged sort of voice.
On Sunday was the inaugural concert which consisted of standing up for around 4 or 5 hours. But like two of those hours was awesome concert times with some speakers and famous people performing songs everyone had heard of/know most of the words to. It actually kind of turned into a sing along with the whole crowd for many of the songs. Bruce Springsteen came out and did his song "The Rising" which a huge choir and he was all over the place. Then "lean on me" and "Change gonna come" and a bunch of others. U2 was there and they did a couple songs, though the group of sorority girls who I happened to be standing next too wouldn't shut up about how they wanted Beyonce to show up (and she did at the end for like one song), but one girl actually said "who are those other guys on stage with Bono?" I was just amazed by their stupidity. Usher was there, and Stevie Wonder, John Mellancamp, Mary J Blige, Jon Bon Jovi, and also Garth Brooks who was actually pretty good in his three songs (because he wasn't warbling around). There were actualy a bunch of other people I can't name all of right now but there were also several speakers like Tom Hanks and Jamie Foxx and Denzel Washington. It doesn't really matter because they showed the concert on tv and you probably already saw it. My favorite part though was the second to last song where Pete Seeger who is seriously 90 years old showed up in a flannel shirt and jeans (despite the fact that it was 20ish degrees outside) with his banjo. He then proceeded to lead the entire crowd of 450,000 people crushed together between the Lincoln memorial and the Washington monument in "This Land Is Your Land" and everyone actually sang along! Me especially. This was one of the most patriotic/harmonious moments of my entire life.
On Monday we went to the Smithsonian Natural history museum which was awesome because I am a science nerd all over the place. Also we went to the movies with Mike's friend and saw "Gran Torino" which was basically Clint Eastwood being the most badass he has ever been the whole movie. I laughed, was saddened, made generally content, and enraged multiple times throughout the film. Suffice to say Clint Eastwood who directed, produce, and starred is awesome.
Tuesday was the inauguration. We woke up at 4 am and got to the mall at around 5 am. We got close enough to see the people on the front of the capital building and even though we couldn't make out faces clearly we were also very close to a well placed "Jumbotron" (seriously who named those things?) and could see a close up of everything. We waited until 11:30 (which is close to six hours of just standing) but around 9 am they replayed the concert that happened and even though everyone had already seen it either actually there or on tv we were all as excited as if it were live happening for the first time. The whole crowd still danced around and sang along to all the songs even though we had been standing for so long and were all tired. Then the inauguration actually happened and the swearing in was adorable, and the chief justice messed up the beginning of the presidential oath, but it was saved eventually so I have no ill will (though Rush Limbaugh was calling for Obama to be removed from office because of improper swearing in). That whole event was also one of the most patriotic/harmonious events of my life. When it was over they had blocked off 8 or so of the streets parallel to the parade route (which we didn't go too but was so packed they wouldn't let anymore people in at all) so they funneled all of the people out of the mall through the smallest opening possible into a smaller area than the mall with an even smaller opening. We were then directed down a street which was closed off and were told to turn around which was impossible due to the crushing amounts of people who were still being herded towards us from the opposite direction. We eventually got back to our room 3 hours later, at which point we were all aching weak senior citizens especially Tori.
There are more things that happened like Chinatown (not too interesting but the place we went to see gran torino) and the place Lincoln died (smallest bed for a 6'6" man ever) and all the walking/ delicious food that happened. Plus I went on the subway for the first time and it was fun but we had to listen to Tori gripe about how Japan has a better system/no one talks on the subway at all. Oh and the Obama souvenirs were being sold on every street corn and consisted of watches, t-shirts, pins, buttons, condoms, sneakers, necklaces, postcards, posters, frames, hats, scarves, and even Obama hand puppets (one of which I gave to Brittany for watching Bamf, even though she refused to touch him at all).
I'm out of time and need to get some work done, so I may elaborate on a forgotten something later. See you dudes on the flipside.