Obama's Inauguration

My visit to DC was wonderful, but Obama’s Inauguration was AMAZING! First things first though: on Friday my housemate Sabala met me at Union Station as I was struggling to maneuver 6 bags off the train and into the station. Sabala was a huge help and a great greeting after an 8 hour train ride in which I ate my requisite peanut butter and (raspberry) jelly sandwich and overdosed on chick flicks. Friday night my housemate Kathleen and I went out to a “Study Abroad Goodbye Dinner” at the Cheesecake Factory with 18 friends, and it was especially nice to see my friend Clara who's now abroad in Sevilla this semester. On Saturday I slept in and sort of wasted the day away...though “time you enjoyed wasting is not wasted time,” so it was lovely. I kept finding myself smiling and laughing while I was in DC. It was surreal to be in a place I love with friends I love without the dark cloud of homework looming over my head. Saturday night we hung out at my friend Sarah’s apartment- we watched “Charlie Bartlett” and ate three kinds of dessert: chocolate pudding, chocolate chip cookies, and pineapple cupcakes.

On Sunday I went to my church (National Community Church, NCC for short) with my friends in the morning. The message was about how God can rescue us when we're trapped in the prisons of our good deeds and past mistakes and it resonated with me. The worship times were also amazing- I love the lyrics “Now I’ll sing freedom for all of my days; it’s only by the power of the cross I’m raised; the King of Glory rescued me.” Sunday afternoon “it just so happened” that Donald Miller, one of my favorite authors, was giving a sermon at Georgetown during the 4pm on-campus Protestant service, so I went and heard him talk about how leaders need to have a heart for justice. Then I went to the reception that followed and met him! My friends and I chatted with him (I found out that he cried the day before upon leaving his puppy, Lucy Hussein Miller, for the first time) and he signed my copy of Blue Like Jazz (if you haven’t read it, I highly recommend it). Monday included sleeping in again and walking to Safeway with my housemates, as well as scanning some of my negatives from my (35mm black and white film) photo class last semester into the computer to create digital versions of my photos. Because I didn’t have a chance to print the majority of my photos in the darkroom, it was really cool seeing them up close on the computer rather than as a tiny 2-inch rectangle on a contact sheet.

Now to the really exciting part: Inauguration Day- January 20, 2009. The story really begins on Election Night after Obama won when my housemates Kathleen and Sabala and our friend (now housemate) Tina and I ran down to the White House to celebrate with the masses after midnight. The whole city had erupted into non-violent chaos: cars honked and people cheered as they streamed to the White House. We high-fived strangers we passed on the way and hugged basketball players from George Washington University. When we got to the White House we joined a thousand other people in cheers of “si se puede” and “yes we did.” Some people burst into patriotic songs and everyone was smiling. It felt really cool to be part of something so big and so historic and so American. A couple hours later we left and walked home, stopping for Philly P’s pizza (the famous Georgetown pizza place that’s open all night) on the way. This was my first slice of Philly P’s, and most people eat Philly P’s at 3am, so I was pleased to be following tradition. As we ate our slices on the curb outside the hole-in-the-wall pizza place, I knew that I had to be back in DC to go to Inauguration even though I would be studying abroad for the spring semester. Long story short, it actually worked out well: I took a train down to DC on Friday Jan. 16, stayed in my old townhouse for six days over Inauguration (rooming with my now-housemate Tina), said goodbye to my friends, and then flew out of DC to Taipei on Thursday Jan. 22 (arriving early Saturday morning Jan. 24 Taipei time).

So onto Inauguration Day: I woke up at 5:50 to be the first of 6 girls in the bathroom. I left at 6:30 to walk a few blocks to our local Saxby’s coffee shop, hoping they’d be open so I could get a coffee and a bagel. It was cold out but I liked the predawn air- I’m rarely up before the sun unless I have a plane to catch. Saxby’s was wonderfully open so I got my fuel for the morning and headed home. Sabala worked at the Treasury this summer and was able to get tickets for her and five of her friends (including me!) to watch the Inauguration from inside the Treasury. It was the best of both worlds because we walked down to the Treasury from our townhouse, experiencing the huge crowds and atmosphere of excitement along the way, but we were also able to leave at 7:15 in the morning, instead of at 4am like a lot of our friends, and we didn’t have to stand out in the frigid cold for the entire day. On our way to the Treasury building we were stopped by several roadblocks guarded by police so we had to weave our way through Washington and walk against the heavy traffic of people headed to the National Mall. The last time we were stopped it was by an Inauguration volunteer who told us we couldn’t walk past St. John’s Church because the Obamas would be attending a service there in 20 minutes. We waited in a long line at our security checkpoint less than a block from St. John’s Church and once our Treasury escort arrived we showed our bright blue badges with our names printed on them and walked through the metal detector. We entered the Treasury annex building and took the underground tunnels under Pennsylvania Avenue to the Treasury itself. The Treasury is right across the street from the White House, and we saw its north entrance where the Obamas entered to have coffee with the Bushes only a few minutes later.

Our home base for the day was the Office of Emergency Programs, where Sabala worked, which is now housed right next to the Secret Service Command Center (we were warned not to disturb them). We watched President-elect Obama become President Obama and listened to his Inauguration speech with some of Sabala’s coworkers as we munched on a nice assortment of meat, cheese, fruits, and veggies. Then after Obama’s luncheon Sabala’s boss received word that anyone in the Treasury building could go sit outside in the bleachers at the end of the parade route, diagonally across the street from the (bullet-proof) Presidential viewing box, in front of the White House. We all threw on our coats and hurried down through the underground tunnels and outside to the bleachers where we were a stone’s throw away from the parade route (not that, with all the security from every branch and level of the US military as well as police and Secret Service, we would have thrown anything). We waited awhile and saw Rahm Emanuel and Tim Geithner get out of coach buses and walk to the Presidential viewing box.

Then, after a long but well-worth-it wait during which policemen on motorcycles and Secret Service SUVs passed by, Barack and Michelle Obama walked right in front of us, waving and smiling. It was surreal seeing them in person. We hadn’t known for sure whether they would leave their car and walk the last leg of the parade route because of security concerns, so we were really excited to see them and cheered and snapped photos and waved. We were frozen to the bone so when the Obamas were out of sight we started heading back to the Treasury and waved to the Bidens as they walked by. We thawed a bit in the Office of Emergency Programs while watching the parade and then decided to go back to the bleachers once more before walking home (it was about 5pm). We were able to get even closer to the Presidential viewing box this time so that we were almost directly across the street from it. We watched Michelle watch the parade and Barack and Joe Biden talk and wave at the marching bands that were passing by. I liked how they saluted the military bands. The sun had set so after 15 minutes we were cold again and decided to head home, but not before waving to President Obama. There was no marching band in front of the Presidential viewing box and President Obama saw all six of us waving! He made eye contact, smiled, and waved back. We freaked out and started jumping up and down, and when President Obama saw our reaction he smiled bigger and laughed, and then started talking to Biden again. Our interaction with the President of the United States was easily the highlight of our day.

We walked home and stopped for pizza on the way. I liked that Election Night and Inauguration Day were symmetrical: we celebrated in front of the White House and ate Philly P’s on the way home. On Wednesday and Thursday I saw more friends and tried to get ready to leave the country for 7 months! On Thursday, Kathleen was really sweet and accompanied me to the airport after a busy (read: stressful) morning. After some creative re-shuffling of the stuff in my suitcases (I ended up carrying my Bible and two boxes of cereal separately- it’s a useful loophole that a book and “food for immediate consumption” don’t count towards your carry-on limit) with Kathleen’s help, I checked in two bags weighing 49 and 50 lbs. After surviving security I got a Happy Meal and waited at my gate til my plane boarded at 4. Surprisingly, there were a lot of native Alaskans on my flight (7 or 8 tribes were represented, I overheard the guy behind me say proudly) who had come to DC for the Inauguration. As we lifted off, I got a little emotional because I knew it would be a long time before I was in DC again, but I was also excited to start the next chapter of my life.