Once We Got To Washington

I was rather surprised, to be honest. There were not as many people around as I thought there would be. I mean, there were a lot, but it just seemed like a normal busy city to me.

Before we left, anytime I talked about the trip with someone who had been to DC, I always heard the same thing: "Union Station is beautiful." I heard about it so many times, in fact, that I told Chris that if Union Station was not the most beautiful *&#@ing building I had ever seen, I was going to slap someone. And it was actually pretty impressive. I'm not sure it merited all the rave reviews it got, but since there were too many Secret Service Agents and FBI agents around for me to feel safe slapping anyone, I settled for declaring it a beautiful building. It was pretty impressive.

Our first mission was to figure out what door to leave through. It wasn't easy. Two security officers and an Amtrak employee later, we made it into a big room. A Great Hall, if you will, with a majestic platform surrounded by a spiral staircase in it's midst, and a large stage flanked with images of Barack Obama and the insignia for the 44th Inauguration. We stared at it in awe for a few minutes before we got pictures of ourselves in front of the stage. Well, I stared in awe. Chris doesn't get overly impressed with things. I'm glad I'm me. Life seems more fun when you can get excited about all the little things.

We finally found a door, then. The only problem was that it was draped in white canvas. The white canvas actually formed tunnels going out of the building, tunnels that were heavily inhabited by Secret Service. I thought it was just amped up security for the days surrounding the Inauguration, but eventually I figured out that the Latin Inaugural Ball was being held there, and the President-Elect was going to be in attendance. Me and Barack Obama is kinda like a ten-year-old girl and the Jonas Brothers... I actually had shivers running down my spine when I realized I had touched the stage that Barack Obama was going to stand on. Is that really pathetic?

The first thing I saw once we finally disentangled ourselves from the white canvas maze was the Capitol building. Again, I had a shivers-down-my-spine moment. It was all just too much for me. We spent several minutes trying to get our bearings. Well, okay, we were mainly just trying to figure out what direction we should walk in order to find the Library Of Congress. Street vendors come in handy for that sort of thing. A few brief conferences with one or two of them had us on our way.

And for ease of reading, I will leave you with that for now. Up next? The Michigan Pre-Inaugural Reception at the (gasp) Library Of Congress.