Catching up........

Hi,
Well, life got too overwhelming as the pace quickened with the inaugurational ceremony, watching the TV back at our host's home and then on to the Inaugural Ball.

So, Here several days later, we're home in Santa Fe and I'm recovering from a nasty head cold....will try and re-chronicle some of our time in DC. Also, here are two great web pages for witnessing the inauguration: the first is a Boston Globe site of pictures from around the world on inauguration day of the ceremony itself and of folks watching......really fun.....I cried all over again looking at them and there are over 10,000 comments for folks from ALL OVER the world. This is being touted as the most watched single-event in history and Barack Obama is the most famous person alive.

http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2009/01/the_inauguration_of_president.html


This site takes you to a video of the ceremony....two hours in length.......
http://inaugural.senate.gov/

You may have to plug it into your browser to get there....it doesn't want to go live on this page.

The night before the inauguration we drove around DC with our host Patrick to get a sense of the town. We drove through Dupont Circle, the major gay neighborhood, out Connecticut Ave. toward Chevy Chase, past the Naval Observatory where the Vice President lives and tried to come back into town via Rock Creek Parkway, but it was closed off for security reasons. We ended up at an Ethiopian Restaurant that had this sign in the window.


There was an artist hanging out showing some of his artwork. This picture is of him and a print I bought. Notice the halo around Obama's head......remember Hallie Salassie (sp), a modern ruler of Ethiopia was considered a god.........
A few pics from earlier in the day when we went down to the Senate Office buildings to pick-up inaugural tickets with our host Patrick. Here is a building with security folks on the top of it.....

And this one if of two young women, form Minnesota, who go to American Univerity in DC. They were waiting to go into see their senator and give her, Amy Klobuchar the t-shirt here. Being from Minnesota we felt allot of closeness in the chilly air.
Here's a Caulder Scupture inside the Senate Office building. Those little black dots at the bottom are people. There are LOTS of Caulder's all over DC.
We stopped into the offices of West Virginia Senator Rockefeller for the tickets then followed our noses down the hall to a Montana Senator, they brew the BEST coffee in that office...........at least from the smell.....it was too late in the day to drink any, even tho they offered.

Then we headed down into the basement catecombs and found the office of our new Junior Senator from NM, Tom Udall. The newbies get these tiny, cramped quaters in the basement, until they rise in Seniority. The office was swamped with visitors, so we moved on.

I like the phrase....Democracy is a Verb. We all need to be active in its creation.

Another picture from the streets of DC.

That's it for now......Those of you who are signed up for this...let me know if you got a notice when I post a new entry. Dimid