Live (a day later) from Obama's Inaguartion in DC

Special JatGB correspondent Laura reports in from Washington DC...

Preparations for inauguration weekend may have been on some people's minds for more than a year, but not for my friends and I at Georgetown Law School. While excited for the nation's big event, our two block distance from the Capitol and the National Mall fostered the inane idea in our heads that we could be relatively nonchalant with our inauguration plans.

Saturday night, out at a bar with friends enjoying night two of our five-day weekend (that's right, when you live in DC, you get five days off for inauguration), a friend of a friend told us there would be a huge concert the next day. "Sounds like fun," we thought, "Maybe we'll roll out of bed and go." And so, around noon the next day, I looked up the time of the concert (2:30), put on some warm clothes, and a friend and I wandered over to the Mall. There were people everywhere, but the calm, good-natured crowd was easy to navigate through. Before I knew it, I had made my way close enough to the Lincoln Memorial to see the performers and presenters, even if they were just tiny specks. Luckily, HUGE television screens were set up throughout the Mall with a great speaker system, so no matter where you were you could catch the show. The concert was amazing. I still can't believe that what felt like an arbitrary decision resulted in my attending one of the coolest events of my life. Celebrity after celebrity kept coming onto the stage to honor the President-elect and remember Martin Luther King, Jr.: We saw Tom Hanks, Stevie Wonder, U2, Beyonce, Shakira, Usher, Sheryl Crow, Garth Brooks, Joe Biden, Michelle Obama and, of course, Barack Obama, to name a few.

After the concert we navigated home and laid low until Tuesday morning. I would say it was around 5:30 AM on Tuesday when I could no longer sleep because of all the sirens outside. I looked out my window and saw the usually bumper to bumper freeway full of people walking towards the Capitol and Mall, parted only by the noisy motorcades that sped by. Naively thinking the Mall would be as accessible on the actual day of inauguration as it had been during the concert, my friends and I dressed as warmly as we could and started walking towards the Mall. The crowd, however, was much denser than it had been on Sunday, and the security around the Mall was incredibly tight. We walked and walked and walked trying to find an entrance to the Mall that didn't require tickets or have an extraordinary long line. For a moment we were side tracked at St. John's Cathedral, where President Obama was receiving the customary inauguration day blessing. We waited outside the church to try catch a glimpse of him, until someone told us he'd been seen leaving through another exit on TV. After walking for hours in the freezing cold, our hands, feet and faces totally numb, we started to come to grips with our poor planning. My friends and I had walked all the way from the Capitol to Georgetown when we decided that we weren't going to make it on the Mall in time to catch inauguration. So we hailed a cab, woke another friend up, and parked ourselves on his comfortable futon in his warm apartment under generously provided blankets and enjoyed a front row view of the events on his great tv.

Even though I was disspointed not to have been on the Mall for the actual inauguration, I don't feel like I missed out on the experience. Both at the concert and while trying to make it onto the Mall for the inauguration, the feelings in the crowds were, to me, the most notable aspect of the weekend. All silences were filled with waving flags, and chants that alernated between "O-Bam-A!" and "Yes We Can!" I've never seen and been with so many people in one place who were all unified, positive and excited for a common reason. Everyone around us just really loved Obama, and nothing, not the crowds, the cold, or long lines could bring anyone's spirits down.

View of the concert...

Thanks for the post sis!!

Also, Keith did some reporting from the event. His seat was pretty good...
Apparently he was in front of NYC Mayor Bloomberg, and behind Dustin Hoffman.