A penny saved is $4999.99 earned

Well, I finally made it to D.C. My journey was not too arduous, but man has it taken a long time to get here. Here's how this whole thing got started:

About a week before the election I was sitting at a Miami hockey game doing some writing for my USCHO.com article in between periods. Well I realized that later that week history would be made as we would be electing our 44th president and thought to my self, why don't I shoot an email over to the editors of the Student and offer my services to cover the inauguration (and pay my own way). A few days later Barak Obama was elected as the 44th president of the United States. I won't lie, I did vote for Obama, who as we all know is the first African-American president of our great nation. As a native of the Chicago suburbs, I've followed Obama since he ran for senate in 2004 against Jack Ryan and then Alan Keyes. He was a great state senator, an even better senator, and I was ecstatic when he was elected as our president.

After being informed of my assignment I quickly hit some road blocks. First I had to figure out where to stay. It came down to splurging a ridiculous amount of money (something I don't have seeing as I am a college student) on a hotel room, or I could stay with my cousin at her apartment in China Town. After many attempts to convince my parents to splurge for the hotel (all of which failed) I sent my cousin an email asking her if it would be cool if I crashed there during inauguration week. Honestly, as nice as a hotel would have been, her apartment is pretty swank for someone just out of law school. plus, her queen-sized air-mattress I slept on last night was probably better than my mattress at school (sad I know).

After locking down a flight to D.C. for all of $10 (thank you Dad for the all of the sky-miles) my next task was getting an actual ticket to the event. So I started emailing every politician in Ohio and Illinois looking for a ticket. I called the senate press gallery to get a press pass but was repeatedly (and often rudely) told that the Miami Student didn't get a pass to the inauguration for some reason.

I didn't hear anything good for a very long time. I could probably make a children's book from all of the "We're sorry to inform you..." emails that I received. And then something wonderful happened. I slept in over winter break. Well, not just that, but it was pretty nice. No I woke up and saw I had a missed call from a number I had never seen before. I also had a voicemail. So I checked the message and it was someone named Erin from John Boehner's office. Yes, the same John Boehner how hit Brick Street with the College Republicans earlier in the year. Erin told me to call her when I got the message. I immediately called back and was informed that I was on the short-list for tickets to Obama's big day and that I'd find out for sure right after Christmas.

Well Christmas came and went, and I still hadn't heard from them. Then New Years passed by, still no call. So I took it upon myself to call Boehner's office again. After a vague conversation with Erin about a letter they sent to my house at school, she told me i'd be getting an email shortly. Very confused about if I was getting a ticket or not, I patiently waited. And waited. And waited some more. Finally about 10 minutes later (OK so I wasn't that patient) I got an email saying that yes I had a ticket. I just about went nuts. I actually got a ticket.

So now I got to play the waiting game for a couple of weeks until yesterday. I flew out of Dayton and into Dulles International Airport outside of D.C. From there I hopped on the Washington Flier to the nearest Metro stop, took the orange line (which was surprisingly empty) to Metro Center, then jumped on the red line (where I felt like a sardine) until my stop. 

Security hasn't been that crazy yet. I've seen an average number of cops around. I mean it is D.C. so obviously the average number of cops at the capital is different than that of the average number of cops in Chicago or Cincinnati is. The one thing that I have noticed is that there was a cop at just about every intersection.

Another crazy thing I noticed is that on just about every block (at least in China Town) there is an Obama-themed shop. I walked past Obama-Land Super Store and Inauguration Super Store on my way to the apartment. It was nuts.

I also realized how lucky I was to have a place to stay. It seems like 80% of the people I've met aren't form D.C. I heard stories about people renting out dorm rooms for $400 a night. $400 a night to stay in a  dorm?! American University and Georgetown must have really nice dorms if kids can charge $400 a night to stay there. I also heard a story about someone paying $5000 to stay on a couch. Not a sofa bed or a futon, a couch. A standard couch. I don't know who would throw down $5000 to sleep on a couch, but unless it's the president's couch, I'm going to say they over-paid. But them's the 'breaks' in D.C. this week.

Today I'm heading over to the Hill to pick up my tickets and meet with some of the College Democrats that also got tickets from Boehner (who, oddly enough, is a Republican). Hopefully I'll be meeting with some important news people at some point in time, and then who knows. There's a lot to see and do here before tomorrow's craziness.

Photos will be posted later.

Until then, CNN's got nothing on us!

-Adam Hainsfurther '11