Monday, January 26, 2009

Inauguration Update

Okay, so after weeks of not updating the blog, going to DC, barely getting back, getting sick and finally feeling life is back to normal, I can update you all on my trip to DC for Inauguration. Can I say simply AMAAAAZING! I have to say it is definitely a trip for the books, but outside of that to be on the national mall on Tuesday, January 20 at 12 noon EST and witness the swearing in of the first Black president! PRICELESS! So below is my recount of my 5 day/4 night trip to the District.

Friday:
Day: I get and chill at my neo's spot in the city to chill until T gets in. We meet my BFF, Scott at
Alero on U Street for happy hour. Great margaritas, horrible food and service. Get a slight buzz and ready to get the evening popping. Meet some cool folks who worked on the Obama campaign and went to 'house with BFF.

8:00pm: T gets to my neo's place where we decide that Park will be the party of choice for the night.

10:00pm:
Park is cool. However, we pull up for valet, and we notice that there are alot of folks from the other persuasion in line. Our girl makes note of this and T questions if we are coming on the right night. We hear Common is supposed to be giving a performance (he did not) and hear our homies from HU have a table, so decide to give up the $40 to get in.

The crowd is definitely one for the movies... all races, ages, sexualities. It's interesting. We find that the crowd is liver on the 2nd floor and head to the bar for a drink. (T and I decide that since we have a 45 min ride to B-more, that we won't be getting tipsy). Run into the HU homies, where we find that the pre-game with Guitar Hero was real. These cats are OOC drunk and it's still the beginning of the night. And to top it off, they are ordering bottles of Cuervo. Who does this? If I could only put into words the kind of madness that these guys were on, you wouldn't believe, so therefore I will just say that designer drugs are not what's up.

We catch glimpses of Common, Will.i.am and
Lance Gross fine self. He's just sexy, but he's shorter than I thought he would be. Congrats to him and Eva though. We try to avoid the thirsty ones, you know the guys who just aren't taking "no" as an answer.

Saturday:
Day: T and I go to Columbia Mall to try to find shoes for my formal dress (I was not able to get the tik to the YP4O Gala but was hoping I could come up on one or another gala/ball).

Evening: We ride an hour in the dark to Montogomery Cty, MD to pregame with my BFF. Only to find there's not much drank, and folks are just really chilling. We find out that we were 45 minutes from DC and decide to be out.

Night: We hit
Posh and meet up with our Chi-town homie, Cam. It's free and they're playing old school R&B with the hits. Cool! It's also a restaurant, and the food here looked absolutely delicious. I seriously have to try next time I'm in the District. Downfall: It was crowded, too crowded. There was no where to sit or stand. However, I did meet a cutie pie from NYC/Jersey who was cooler than cool.

Late Night: Hit
Busboys and Poets for food, where the wait is long but it's one of the only 3 spots that is open late night. Plus, I have to do something that is DC right? As T and I are waiting for our table, and waiting on the rest of our party to arrive, a drunk man falls into me, causing me to stumble. We think that he was struck by someone and fear that a fight is about to break out only to find that he's just extremely drunk. (It's really one of those moments you just had to be there, LOL!) Shaken up, we go to our table only to be waited by the worst server in life. Took her forever to get our orders, she forgot she took our order, forgot folks' meals and tooks over 30 minutes to get our check. Busboys was open for 24 hours inauguration weekend and obviously either wasn't ready for the crowd, or didn't pull their best servers on deck.

Sunday:
Day: Since we got in at 7am, we decided to sleep in until 2. We were supposed to transfer places to stay (from B-more to Montogomery Cty.), we had to take the rental back and figure out a way to get to my girl's crib. Well, we ran into some issues, since we found out that streets were blocked off due to the "We Are One" concert and decided to change at T's girl's spot and go to the new digs later.

Night: Since we don't have to worry about driving, T and I get it started with the pre-game with wine (who knew that DC does not sell liquor on Sundays, and do not sell it in their grocery stores - I want them to do better) and decide tonight is about getting it popping! LOL! We get to our friend's party at
Coco Sala, with no wait, no fuss and start partying away! My #7 and her brother are there. The music is hitting and the cuties are all around, plus the Chi-town homies are in the building. What more can you ask for? I have a moment where I lose my camera, however my linesister's brother picks it up and saves the night. We also find out that the girl we were suppose to stay with flakes out on us and we are able to stay with our boy (I absolutely love him...he forever looks out).

Monday:
Day: Another lazy day...and pretty much nothing.

Night: We stay at my neo's. T gets prepped for the gala. Neo and I try to hit Lotus. We stand in line for 20 minutes and it does not move. Did I mention that it was 0 degrees all weekend? I'm impatient, my neo is cold, sowe decide to hit my boy's party at
Midtown. It's a light crowd, which is okay with me. It's the last night so I'm okay with it. A new homie buys me a drink and I had already pregamed on the way... however I was coming down with a cold, not enough sleep, not eating right = my body shuts down on me. I get too drunk and have to leave the club and end the night. (Theres more to this story, but details will stay b/w parties involved. I will forever love my neo and be bonded to my new homie).

Tuesday:
8:00am: I wake up to find out that my my phone is now in the hands of the new homie (I was happy it wasn't lost, because I always manager to lose phones) and manage to pull it together to put on 3 layers to stand on the mall for the swearing in. We get to the train station to find that the line to get on, looks like you'd thought they were giving away free money (I know there was an extra 2 million people in the city but don't think DC properly prepared). We take the train one stop to find out that we will have to walk the rest of the way. The amount of people we see on our way to the mall is unreal!

10:30am:
We make it to the mall and we are by the National Monument. But we have a clear view of the jumbotron. We find out that we are standing near
Clifton Davis, brotha from Amen. The energy is amazing. People are chanting, holding up their "Arrest Bush" signs, and rocking their Barack-a-wear. We boo when Bush comes up on the screen and chear when they flash to Obama. It's amazing... we're cold, but we try not to let it faze us. And then the moment comes... Chief Justice Roberts asks the Senator if he's ready to take the oath. The moment President Obama raised his hand and said the words "I Barack Hussein Obama" I start crying. Everyone starts cheering. I look over and see T is crying and we hug each other. It is now complete! His speech was amazing.. he told Bush about himself and told the American people what he plans to do. The minute the helicopter whisked Bush away everyone cheered and waved good-bye. Everyone was on cloud 9.

12:30pm: We walk from the mall to the train station. It took us 2 hours to do this.

3:00pm: We get food, T looks for memorabilia, and we venture back to get packed up and to the airport. We missed our flights but figured we would be able to get out that night and back to work Wednesday.

7:00pm: We get to the airport to find out our flights were practically the last flights out that day and would have to leave out in the morning. T was able to get the last seat on a US Airways flight that had a layover in Philly. United basically tells me I'm S.O.L. However, since my flight was on US Airways to NYC and then my connect put me on United, I talk to US. I was at the counter for over an hour but brotha man worked it out so that I had a seat on the flight from Philly to Chicago but had to fly standby on the flight out of BWI to Philly.

Talk about being on an emotional rollercoaster when you fly standby. You can only hope someone didn't set their alarm or got lost on the way to the airport so you can snatch up their seat... and it happened. I was able to snatch up 1 of 2 seats that were available. Yes! God definitely answers prayers.

Like I said, a trip for the books. Good times all around! The crazy things we encountered in addition to the swearing in are unimaginable. However, I only wish I'd known that if I was going to miss our flights and not leave out until Wednesday that I had gone to the Neighborhood Ball. I had gotten asked by my boy's boy on Monday to go..ah well! Next time maybe.

I will close with saying it feels great to be an American :)

3 comments:

T said...

Fab recap.

"As T and I are waiting for our table, and waiting on the rest of our party to arrive, a drunk man falls into me, causing me to stumble. We think that he was struck by someone and fear that a fight is about to break out only to find that he's just extremely drunk. (It's really one of those moments you just had to be there, LOL!)"

This will ALWAYS be funny. Like I will never stop laughing at this ignorant situation.

Reese said...

wow, ive been reading recaps from so many people and i realize that i should have been there, im not mad that i wasnt, im not a fan of crowds at all and i watched it all on tv as well and was very happy to see it all go down from the warmth of my office

baster said...

Great post, all these ideas are quite easy to understand and I agree with you
writing a annotated bibliography