Day of the Concert

It's back on the Metro Sunday morning to make our way to the concert at Lincoln Memorial. We feel like we have this Metro routine down and are glad we did the trial run to town on Saturday. Today there are more people but luckily it's a bit warmer with temps in the 20 degree range rather than teens.

We exit the Metro at "Foggy Bottom" and wind with the crowd towards the Lincoln Memorial. There are street vendors every few steps peddling Obama buttons, tees, hats and gloves. Nor buys a scarf then we stop at a little "jiffy mart" and grab some snacks for the day. We noticed as we were making our selections that there were no prices on anything but I guess we were too hungry to put things back at that point. Lesson learned...don't buy "priceless" items as you will be gouged.

Back out to the street to join the crowd heading to Lincoln Memorial. More people, streets blocked, police everywhere. People excited and friendly. We made it through the purse/bag inspection and were in the park! Took a few pictures at the World War II Memorial but it quickly became evident that we wouldn't make it close to the stage, i.e Lincoln Memorial so we headed for an area right in front of one of the large monitors they had placed throughout the crowd. We people-watched for next 2 and 1/2 hours waiting for the concert to start. People from all over the country and heard foreign languages being spoken as well. It feels so good to have so many people excited and hopeful about the future of this country because of Obama.

We didn't realize that the concert was a "live and orchestrated" event not just a concert. The Bidens made their entrance followed by Obama, Michelle and the girls. Bruce Springsteen opened the concert with a choir behind him. In between each performer there where speakers who spoke about our country's history. Speakers included Tom Hanks, Forrest Whitaker, Latifa, Samuel Jackson, Tiger Woods and so many more. The performers were Bono, Bon Jovi, Beyonce, James Taylor, Garth Brooks, Stevie Wonder, Usher, Shikira, Grobin, and more. I can't even remember all of them. Every once in a while the camera would land on Obaba just smiling his wonderful smile and movin' with the music. Lots of sing alongs and the crowd was really into it. Fun to see the camera show the crowds which went from Lincoln Memorial well past the Jefferson monument. Lots of joy all around. Everything went smoothly considering the size of the crowd and of course there were police everywhere and security atop the Lincoln Memorial.

We decided to walk to Georgetown and find a place to eat. As we were making our way in that direction we hit a roadblock....police cars blocking the intersections and we could tell someone important was going to be passing. Sure enough, it was Obama's limo and Nor saw him through the window! Again the whole scene with his car preceded and followed by motorcycle police and quite an entourage of other vehicles. Helicopters overhead...the whole works. Amazing how much of one's personal life is gone in that position. The crowd so wanting to see him and chanting O-BA-MA, O-BA-MA.....

We found a nice little restaurant across from the Mayflower Hotel where the Bidens were staying and had a nice window seat where we could watch party goers entering and exiting the hotel. After a nice dinner and sharing a bottle of wine we decided to follow some of the "gowns" to see where the ball might be. We followed them to another entrance of the same hotel and watched people as they entered the lobby. Decided to go in to see what we could see....apparently this was an Ohio and Maryland gala. We thought had we not had our hiking boots and rubber boots on we may have been able to walk right into the party hall! May have to shop for gowns at Goodwill and try again on inaugural night (w/out the hikers). Stopped a few more hotels but did not see anyone of note that we recognized but had fun until I hit the wall and Nor had to drag my tired a_ _ home.