Inauguration summary! part 2

Okay, last part of my festivities! Starting with Inauguration day!

Thursday morning was a flurry of activity, as we prepared to leave. Chris and I had to meet the guy with the blue tickets at Capitol south station, so we left the rest of the group and did that. We tried to sell off our yellow tickets (we had about 6 extra) but ended up giving away all but 2 to some people who had none, and to a girl whose boyfriend was in Iraq with the Marines.

It turns out, Blue section was mostly donors, and was within 150 yards or so of the podium!

The whole Inaugural was great! I am sure you can read the transcripts or hear the speeches somewhere else. Couple moments were precious though…

1. When John Kerry was shown on the screens, the whole crowd booed… I think this was a bit childish, but it is an automatic reaction...
2. Condi Rice got the biggest applause of the day, other than Bush and Cheney.
3. Chief Justice Rehnquist showed up! He looked sick, but he also looked dignified.
4. The shot of Hillary bopping her head to the ‘70s ish song (something about eagles) got a laugh from the audienceJ

At the end, during the closing piece, most of the crowd started leaving, so Chris and I pushed up to about 75 yards from the podium to hear the closing prayer and wave, got our pictures taken…

We then pressed our way out of the crowd, and met up with the guys. We had neglected to get tickets to the parade, so we decided to head back to get our “tuxes” and watch it on C-Span there while having lunch. Thinking back, we probably could have gotten into the parade with out tickets because there weren’t that many people, but oh well.

After watching the parade, we got ready for the ball! Chris wore a white shirt with his suit, I wore a deep burgundy shirt and black tie (looked smashing according to some female friendsJ). Adam and Brandon had tuxes, and they were planning on mooching into a couple balls through various contacts (Adam was able to, Brandon never did). Brandon actually wore Chris’s tux shirt and stuff, and Adam wore my studs and cufflinks.

The Texas-Wyoming ball was apparently the biggest of the group. Sean Hannity was taping his show there, with guests Rudy Giuliani and Peggy Noonan. Rudy was of course, they mayor of the Greatest City in the World (got to see him up close on the street once) and Peggy Noonan is a writer for the Wall Street Journal, and was a CBS writer before she went to write speeches for Reagan, so I have connections to both! Sort of… It was just cool to see them up close and participate in the taping!

Sean Hannity was giving autographs… Chris and I pressed in and got the last 2 he gave out on our programs! Pretty sweet…

We missed the President by about 5 minutes, which was a bummer, but… oh well. They had several bands playing. I danced a swing number with a girl named Stacy when the Tommy Dorsey band was up, and bopped around a bit to the Beatlemania Live band (basically some guys channeling the Beatles… great stuff!). Chris decided at about 11 to head out to see if Brandon wanted to come in. Chris’s ticket wasn’t torn, so he could go out and someone else could use itJ Brandon apparently decided not to.

So, I was just bopping around, getting ready to leave, talking to my mom on the phone, when… Amy tapped me on the shoulder! She and the rest of her group (Brit, Lori (her sister) and Sabrina) had been at the Liberty ball, and they had said that people could start going between balls if they wanted to! They said theirs was basically over, but this one was still going strong!

About then, Donald Rumsfeld showed up! Brit got to shake his hand or something. Amy and I saw him in the VIP section, and decided not to tempt fate and try to get closer to shake his hand at the time. He had some big looking bodyguards:)

Anyway, I did some more dancing, talked some more, and the end of it was that we made it to Fairfax around 4am… what a night!

The next day. Brandon, Adam and Chris were all doing various things they needed to do, so we said our goodbyes and went our separate ways. W all got up around 10:30am. I had a train scheduled to take me at 10:30 am, but I got the reservation changed to 4:05pm (which was delayed till about 4:20, but oh well. One reason I was out till 4 was that I was trying to get it changed. Turned out all I needed to do was call Amtrak, but... didn't know that at the time:) Anyway, I was able to take my time getting to Union Station, say some goodbyes to various friends... I made it home at about 9:30pm on Friday night.

So that was my week! I met new friends, I got reacquainted with old ones, and I was involved in history so much happened.

I love the fact that everything worked out so well. Life can be fun when you just hang on and see where it goes!

I look forward to continuing the friendships I made, and seeing what else is in store!