The Best and Worst of Inauguration Weekend

As both a participant and journalist, here's what I found most memorable and least memorable about my stay in D.C. during Inauguration festivities.

The Good
5. Role of Twitter: Not only did dannythedemon play a key part in starting this blog (how we made initial contact with the Sun-Times), we gained 400+ followers in just two weeks, including the Washington Post. The Chicago Tribune's ColonelTribune gave us a shoutout. Canada's National Post live-streamed our tweets. And Radio-Canada contacted me to request an interview through Twitter (which led to this story). Besides the media attention, the amount of replies and direct messages we received was overwhelming.
4. Patriotism: The pride and sense of nationalism was a recurrent theme throughout the trip. Red, white and blue was everywhere, and seemingly every local business decorated for the occasion. Flags were on every block and people would often bellow random renditions of patriotic tunes in the streets, like God Bless America.

3. Brunch with Lonnie Bunch: The fact that we were able to set up an interview with the prominent historian and former Chicagoan was one thing, the fact that he invited us into his own home in Northwestern D.C. was something else entirely. He was so kind and very knowledgeable. He didn't have to take the time out of his busy schedule for us. But he did, and the next day he spent some eight hours providing analysis for ABC.
2. Lincoln Memorial Concert: Worth the trip alone. The 2nd biggest event I've ever attended in my life in terms of crowd size, only to Inauguration Day itself. The overall atmosphere was just awesome: chanting, laughing, smiling, and everybody with a camera or cell phone in hand. The list of celebrities didn't hurt, nor did Obama's speech, and the performances were out of this world. I didn't expect this event to be as great as it was.
1. Sense of Community: Everyone who made the trek down D.C. had a common bond immediately and the opportunity to share in the festivities. And people did too, often exchanging stories of travel troubles or exciting encounters with celebrities, striking up conversation with complete strangers. The Swearing-In ceremony topped it all off as shared in the mess getting out of the National Mall and Capitol.

The Bad
5. Wireless/cell access: This could have been a lot worse, of course, but making calls and sending texts wasn't as easy as 1, 2, 3. At peak times, I had to do something five or six times before it went through. Other times, sporadically, I would have no service at all. Fortunately, it turned into nothing more than a minor inconvenience.
4. Not enough grub: One common complaint was that there wasn't enough food to go around. Most restaurants had 1-2 hour waits during lunch or dinner hours. Even McDonald's had huge delays - it took me an hour and 20 minutes to place my order shortly after the Swearing-In Ceremony. There weren't nearly enough vending machines or street stands. But there were plenty of port-a-potties.

3. Overcrowded landmarks: Want to take a stroll to the White House to try snap a few pictures? How about visit the Lincoln Memorial on Sunday night? You can go, as I did, but you're going to spend plenty of time standing around. Long lines were extremely common and nearly impossible to avoid.
2. Blatant disrespect: Fortunately, this was only limited to pockets of the crowd, but some on Inauguration Day poked fun at Dick Cheney upon seeing him and a wheel chair and others booed George W. Bush whenever he was shown on the jumbotron. It just didn't seem the place or the time for any sort of mocking or negativity.
1. Metro Station overload: Emergency and transit officials did their best, but no matter who you are, nobody is going to be able to accommodate for 2 million+ people. The headaches were compounded by the accident involving a 68-year-old woman who fell onto one station's tracks, the bitter cold air, and the fact people grew tired of standing, standing and more standing.