To start off, Jenni (my cousin) took me to Union Station to meet up with Craig (her boyfriend for those of you who didn't read my photo post) for lunch before we hit the Hill to grab our tickets to Tuesday's events. After packing into the Union Station food court (BUSIEST FOOD COURT IN THE WORLD!) and scarfing down a burger and fries we headed over to the Senate office building so that Jenni and Craig could get their tickets, but after seeing one of the many massive lines on the Hill we decided it'd be best if we split up. Craig and I then took off for the Longworth House Office Building, where we hit another massive line.
After chatting with a former News Anchor from Greensboro-turned- Mary Kay director and a professor from Lincoln, Nebraska among other people I was presented with an interesting question, "Are you from Ohio?" The reason I say this was interesting was because A. I'm not from Ohio originally, and B. I was wearing a Cubs hat, Lacoste polo, and a coat so I have no idea how the girl asking me could possibly infer that I was from Ohio. Anyway, as it turned out, the girl was part of a news-team from Bowling Green's BG News newspaper looking for an Ohioan (I guess I was close enough) to interview. After doing the interview, a Japanese T.V. crew came running up to me and shoved a camera in my face, why, I don't know, but it was funny.
After waiting in line for about an hour we made it inside and past security. Craig had to make a stop at Congressman Brad Miller's office. Miller is a representative from North Carolina (Craig's home state). Congressman Miller was kind enough to take a picture with me and Craig (which I posted earlier).
From there we headed down a floor to Congressman Boehner's office. The Congressman wasn't around but I did manage to get my ticket from a pair of very nice aides. Upon opening my envelope I found not just a ticket, but a map, a program, a picture of Obama, a picture of VP-to-be Joe Biden, and, easily one of the coolest things I could have gotten, an invitation from Obama and Biden to the inauguration itself. I'll post pictures of the swag later.
Anyway from there I met up with Ben Lockshin, Stephen Kostyo, and Jessica Gephart, all members of Miami's College Democrats. After searching for a while (my phone had died earlier in the day) we finally were able to find each other at the Air and Space Museum and then headed off to the National Gallery of Art on the Mall, where we all compared inauguration seats (Ben and I will be in the standing sections of Purple and Blue respectively while Stephen and Jessica lucked out to get actual seats in the desirable Orange section). After hanging out and admiring some art (as well as getting told by security guards that the corners of my manila folder were to sharp to point at the art from 3 feet away) we decided to part ways.
To close out the night I got Five Guys Famous Burgers and Fries, which was hands down the best fast food I've ever eaten, and chilled while doing some writing, photo uploads, and what not (which included watching the Allen Iverson shut down the Memphis Grizzlies in the "6th Annual Martin Luther King Jr. Day Classic") .
Now the one observation I had about D.C. today was that there was a ridiculous amount of security today. Honestly I don't know where these guys came from but there were at least three cops/security guards/government agents for every one person. Not only that but they were armed to the teeth. I was walking back from getting dinner and swear I saw two cops holding AK-47's. I've never seen one of those outside of a video game or History Channel show, so to see two, being held by cops, was a bit of a culture shock.
At Union Station I saw cops with full out body armor, multiple guns, dogs. Honestly I was half expecting Jack Bauer to show up. Lucky for everyone he didn't (how many bad days can one guy have). There were police dogs everywhere I looked. I think half the city's sidewalks were off-limits. To top things off I don't think a five minute span went by where I didn't hear a siren go off either because a cop was speeding off or someone in the government was going somewhere in their blacked-out SUV's.
If this is what the day before the inauguration looks like, I can only imagine the insane security I'll get to experience tomorrow.
That's all for now, more coverage and photos tomorrow.
Until then CNN's got nothing on us.
-Adam Hainsfurther '11
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