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Back from DC!
Jan. 21st, 2009 11:36 pmOnce upon a time, four grad students went to DC... ( clickez for fotos )
It was a phenomenal six days. Two of those days were spent driving, but we had the audiobook of Dreams From My Father for the way down and the audiobook of America: The Book for the ride home. Many thanks to our lovely hostess for the fantastic bed, the warm reception and the chauffeur-to-Metro. Everyone we met was kind and wonderful (except for the waitress from hell, but even she was comically horrible), and it seemed like the entire city was made up of ridiculously happy people. We made new friends, remade old friendships and had a darn good time.
I'll have more pictures when I meet back with the other four and we exchange photo files. But no pictures can really replicate or even hint at what it was like to be there. Pictures can't replicate the feeling of sunlight (finally peeking out from the clouds) warming your face after 6 hours of sub-zero windy weather, knowing it's another two hours before Obama is even supposed to arrive.
Pictures can't tell you what it was like to hear the middle-aged black women behind you in the crowd of millions repeating over and over again, "We did it, I can't believe we did it, praise the Lord we did it," and knowing that you have no way to understand - being too young, and too white, too Canadian, even - the magnitude of what you're witnessing.
Pictures can't describe going to someone else's county to watch their leader take some ceremonial oath of office and being moved to tears by politics. Of all things, tears of joy over politics.
The entire thing was equal parts surreal and fantastic (but more on that later), and I'd never been witness to so much unbridled Americanism. We're so lucky that we had this chance to head down there, and to be a part of it all. I'm going to sleep for 36 straight hours now, and leave my email for the morning...
(a woman and her niece were collecting signatures on a bedsheet to take back home)
Edit: score one for women in academia, 'cause Jill Biden was introduced not as Mrs. Biden, but as Dr. Jill Biden. I looked her up on wiki, and they say she earned her doctorate in Education.
It was a phenomenal six days. Two of those days were spent driving, but we had the audiobook of Dreams From My Father for the way down and the audiobook of America: The Book for the ride home. Many thanks to our lovely hostess for the fantastic bed, the warm reception and the chauffeur-to-Metro. Everyone we met was kind and wonderful (except for the waitress from hell, but even she was comically horrible), and it seemed like the entire city was made up of ridiculously happy people. We made new friends, remade old friendships and had a darn good time.
I'll have more pictures when I meet back with the other four and we exchange photo files. But no pictures can really replicate or even hint at what it was like to be there. Pictures can't replicate the feeling of sunlight (finally peeking out from the clouds) warming your face after 6 hours of sub-zero windy weather, knowing it's another two hours before Obama is even supposed to arrive.
Pictures can't tell you what it was like to hear the middle-aged black women behind you in the crowd of millions repeating over and over again, "We did it, I can't believe we did it, praise the Lord we did it," and knowing that you have no way to understand - being too young, and too white, too Canadian, even - the magnitude of what you're witnessing.
Pictures can't describe going to someone else's county to watch their leader take some ceremonial oath of office and being moved to tears by politics. Of all things, tears of joy over politics.
The entire thing was equal parts surreal and fantastic (but more on that later), and I'd never been witness to so much unbridled Americanism. We're so lucky that we had this chance to head down there, and to be a part of it all. I'm going to sleep for 36 straight hours now, and leave my email for the morning...
(a woman and her niece were collecting signatures on a bedsheet to take back home)
Edit: score one for women in academia, 'cause Jill Biden was introduced not as Mrs. Biden, but as Dr. Jill Biden. I looked her up on wiki, and they say she earned her doctorate in Education.
