My Inauguration Experience

Would you like to be amongst a crowd of almost 2 million people? My family and I went to Washington D.C. to see Barack Obama become the 44th president of the United States. It was freezing cold. It was more crowded than I ever imagined possible. Trying to walk one block took half an hour of pushing, shoving, and inching our way forward. We walked about three miles just to get to where we could see the ceremonies on a big videotron. My father was focused on trying to get us to a spot where we could see the inauguration, while my mother spent her whole time trying to make sure that my sisters and I didn’t get lost in the gigantic crowd. We had woken up at 5 a.m., taken a half hour car ride and a 45-minute train ride just to get to the grounds and then spent four hours walking to find a spot. In fact, the day had all the ingredients for being a terrible day. Yet it was one of the most exciting, fun days I’ve ever had. The crowds of people, people and more people were in the best mood. Being around almost 2 million people who were ALL in a good mood is a pretty amazing experience.

One lady in the crowd kept holding up and waving an American flag. It was a problem for the rest of us behind her because we could not see a thing. Instead of getting mad and yelling at her, one guy behind us put his hands up to his mouth and shouted with humor “Hey! Put the flag down and nobody gets hurt!” The crowd started laughing and the lady turned around and laughed with the crowd. She didn’t put the flag up anymore.

There were tons of vendors on the side streets selling different things. Some of the vendors were selling really practical things like water and hand warmers but most were selling things like t-shirts, hats, artwork, and pins all with pictures of the new first family.

Lots of people have asked me about the age and race of the people in the crowd. I couldn’t really tell you any one thing, because the crowd had everyone in it, every age and every race. Maybe there is an exact number and percent, but as someone who was there all I can tell you is that it felt as though we were all there together. It felt as if we were all friends who had come together to inaugurate a president. It didn’t feel like a young-thing, an old-thing, a black-thing or a white-thing; it felt like an American-thing.