President Obama

Greetings readers! I've been off the grid for a few days, down in Washington D.C. watching the inauguration of Barack Obama as President. It. Was. Awesome.

Things I wore to the inauguration:

• 2 pairs of socks, 1 pair of which was made for wearing in the Arctic
• 1 pair of thermal long-johns (thanks Mum!)
• 1 pair of comfy jeans
• 5 layers of polyprops, Icebreaker tops, jackets, jerseys and singlets
• 1 looooooonnnng scarf
• 1 ugly hat
• 2 pairs of gloves
• 1 pair of tramping boots
• 2 10-hour hand warmers

And despite all of it, I was bloody cold. Whose dumb-ass idea was it to have the nation's capital in Virginia/Maryland? I vote for Miami!

There's too much to say about the weekend, and what it was like. I don't want to bore anyone, so here's a few snippets.

I heard a little kid say to his dad: "So, Bush has to go home now, right Dad?".

I saw Navy boys with their arms around each other's shoulders, singing "Lean on Me".

There were almost 2 million people there on the big day, and not a single arrest. That's how joyous the crowd was. It was beautiful!

On the way to D.C. our train was stuck behind Obama's, as he made his way down. Every time HIS train moved, OURS had to stop. Man, we were late! We finally managed to catch up and pass him while he was giving his speech in Baltimore. The whole train cheered and clapped and took lots of photos of what was (really) just a normal Amtrak train.

I almost missed the whole thing because I was looking out the other side of the train at all the secret service cars! Every 100 metres or so between Baltimore and D.C. there was a state trooper, or a secret service car. Where they could get near the tracks, there were crowds of people taking photos and cheering.

Hmm. What else? Well, the concert on Sunday was great. Lots of big names, very happy crowd. Monday was Martin Luther King day. We went into town, but it was totally nuts.

Tuesday was a very long day, and the only really stink thing was that I never got to see the parade. I had a ticket for a seat, and everything! However, security was so puckery tight that people pretty much couldn't move. In 2 hours, I think I managed to move about 500 metres. So, I missed it. I went back to Annie and Sarah's house instead, and watched it on TV from the comfort of the couch.

Here are some piccies!

This is just after the Sunday concert. I'm standing in front of the Washington Monument, looking towards the Lincoln Memorial (where the show was). This was the back of the crowd, people! Can you even SEE the LM?



The obligatory shot with the Washington Monument as a head piece.



Sad Jody living in George W. Bush's America. With the White House in the background.



Happy Jody living in Barack Obama's America, with the Capitol building in the background.



A very zoomed in shot of Barack and Michelle arriving at the concert.




Alan (Caroline's Dad), Roy and Caroline on Inauguration Day.



Sneaky sneaky Jody somewhere on the National Mall.



And this is a video of the crowd having fun when Garth Brooks played.




The reason that there aren't many photos from the Big Day, is that I couldn't see dick anyway. I was standing beside the Washington Monument, and if I jumped up and down a bit I could see over the sea of heads to the very tippety top of the Capitol Building. Not really worth taking pictures of, to be honest.