I left at around 8:30, Metro was no worse than an average rush hour. Made the mistake of getting off at Metro Center which required circumventing Pennsylvania avenue by going around the White House, though it was kind of fun moving through DC as part of a teaming mass.
I got to the outer edge of where I was hoping I’d be: the Capitol side of the Washington Monument. That actually worked pretty well, because after briefly moving to a prime centered position, I retreated to an area where I could actually sit for a bit. The mall was amazingly crowded, in the picture below, the only empty areas are those that were cordoned off, and people were pretty densely packed, much tighter than at the concert.
Given my relatively isolated position, acoustics were pretty good, with the volume pumped for all the key bits. It was definitely thrilling to hear now-President Barack Hussein Obama recite the oath of office, even if there was some confusion there. I thought his speech was good and set the right tone, my favorite part was his address to the varied overseas audiences. Warren’s invocation had some nods to alliance building and though it acknowledged that Americans are not united by religion didn’t really offer much new. By comparison, I missed parts of the Joseph Lowery benediction, but what I caught was awesome. The poem didn’t really make it over the crowd noise.
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The rest of my pictures are above, note that the slideshow is in reverse order. After the inauguration, I met up with my Dad and we caught the start of the parade. It was actually pretty hard for non-ticketed people to view the thing at all. But Obama did stop the limo and give a quick wave at an area where us plebeians could actually see him.
Logistics and such after the cut.
James Fallows has pictures that give a good idea of what you miss by not being there. He also offers a descriptions of the logistics that was consistent with my experience:
Logistics better than expected getting into the event; surprisingly bad on the way out. A potentially nasty moment occurred here, with many tens of thousands of people pushing toward what they thought was an exit, but which was in fact barricaded on three sides… American ingenuity and spontaneous self-organization to solve the problem: some crowd members climbed on top of the Porta-Potties to see where the exit point was. (No policemen or other volunteers offering any guidance on where to head.)
My exit was easier, as I dawdled for a while trying to find my cell phone. I got someone to call it, turns out it was in my shirt pocket under my sweater. Moving on.. tried to make it to American History, which I heard from several sources was open, to kill time, but there was at least one soldier at the 14th street crossing forbidding counter flow movement. When I asked how to do things I got rather inconsistent answers. I tried working my way around on the other end of the mall, it seemed doable but was hard enough that I gave up. All that said, more than three times the population of the city was in town for the inauguration, some trouble on the way out is still a solid success.
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