Inauguration and such

On the 20th I was able to go to the Inauguration. It was quite the experience. It started with waking up at 3:30 and eating an egg breakfast with all the interns. We all had tickets, and the 4 of us that had SEATED tickets (which were kind of a big deal) headed out together. We had to wait in line for 2 hours to get through security and then wait in our seats for another long while in the freezing cold. It was miserable. But eventually the program started and we heard music and saw some famous people on the big screen and heard people boo President Bush (which pretty much ruined the experience for me) and then saw Obama and Biden get sworn in. We heard President Obama give his address and while I don't agree with the man on most things, I will admit he is a very good speaker. The entire experience was not what I expected it to be. But it was cool to be part of such a historic moment, something that you know will be written about in history books in the future. It was also cool to have such good seats, especially when most of the people had to stand on the Mall or not get in! That is the very brief version of my Inauguration experience. More details are available upon request. :)

Update

Ok, keeping up on this thing is going to be more difficult than I anticipated. I will try and do better! In my defense, I started work last week and it's just been busy busy.

Work is GREAT. I work in the Press Office and also help out the Senator and Chief of Staff's secretary. In the morning, we have to go through newspapers and find all the stories that either mention Senator Bennett. or would be of any interest to him at all. It keeps me busy almost right up to lunchtime. After lunch, it's mostly random things that I do. Which means that I am running around lost in the Capital a lot of the time, looking for offices. Which means I get to see lots of cool things, so I don't mind!

Every Tuesday I get to go wait at the policy lunch that the Dem's and Rep's have. And at last week's I saw President-elect Obama walk out of the meeting. He was ten feet away from me! It was cool!

Another beauty of working on the Hill is the awesome things I see everyday, such as the Capital and the Supreme Court at night! It's so beautiful. Every time I walk by it I am still amazed that I am here. I will update soon, because I get to go to the Inauguration on Tuesday and I will have lots to talk about. I get seated seats right up front and will probably meet Oprah.

My first day in DC

Today, the day started with shopping. I had been a little homesick since I landed last night, but once I was in the mall I felt right at home. Shopping can fix anything. There was a bunch of stuff me and the other interns needed to get that we couldn't pack, so we spend the majority of the day chasing those things around. It was my first time on the metro, which was pretty neat. I even took a picture of the tunnel, and then had to ride it many, many more times.

Now we get to the good part. After a long day of running around we got to go see some of the good stuff! We saw the Washington Monument, World War II Memorial, and the Lincoln Memorial, all at night. They were all breathtaking and bright white against the sky. Seeing them at night for the first time was awesome.

I didn't start crying until we got the the WWII Memorial, but it was hopeless at that point. It is a very beautiful place. There are powerful quotes at the end of the walkways and lots of pieces around the outside depicting parts of the war. It was very cool to see the memorial for an event I have such a fascination for. It made my respect for the men and women who took part even stronger. I could have sat and looked at it forever, but my butt got cold and no one else wanted to wait for me.

The Lincoln Memorial was also very cool. There is a very quiet and respectful atmosphere there. Not only is his statue very impressive and deserving of respect, but there are two speeches on the wall; the Gettysburg address and an Inaugural speech. Reading them in the presence of the giant Lincoln made their message even more powerful.
Washington DC is awesome! I can't wait to see the other things on my list. Good thing I have 4 months to do it all, because the list is quite long. Which means this blog might be quite long and full of my exciting DC life. :)

Testing, Testing

I leave in two days! And I have no idea how this works!