Festivities

We're taking advantage of being in DC. We went to the free concert on the Mall yesterday - us and 400,000 other people - and it was great. I was especially excited to see Stevie Wonder live, although it was also really neat to see Pete Seeger up there. We weren't anywhere even near the stage - we didn't even make it into the secured area; we were a little east of the WWII memorial. But the crowd was still packed, shoulder-to-shoulder, and very excited to be there; we all craned our necks to see the nearest jumbo-tron, and sang along to many of the songs. The speeches were, by and large, really good - and despite the amazing star power on the stage, Obama was the one who consistently drew the biggest cheers, every time that he spoke, stood up, was mentioned, or even just had the camera focus on him. It was emotional and moving and I'm so glad I was there!

It was also cold, and we walked most of the way there and most of the way back, and were outside for several hours standing almost rigidly. So that was not so comfortable. It was like a dry run for Tuesday, though, which I anticipate will be colder, and a longer walk and longer time spent standing, but hopefully we will get there early enough to make it through the security checkpoints. I'm anxious about that. Overall though - I'm just so glad to live in DC right now!