INAUGURATION 2009

I woke up this morning at 6am to the sound of people screaming, buses speeding, and sirens blaring! I got ready and began my normal walk to work.  I knew that it was going to be nothing close to normal, but I didn't expect what I saw! The sidewalks were packed, crowds spilling onto the streets and cops trying to control traffic! As I walked down the street I noticed people wearing Obama gear all over the place and as I looked down I saw a newspaper matted to the ground, opened to an article about Obama. It was like a movie...madness all over the place! I was almost brought to tears by the sheer overwhelming factor of it all!

Once I made it to work I knew that it was going to be an extremely busy day due to our location and the fact that so many places around us were closed! Once again, I didn't expect what I saw! There was a non-stop line out the door and I didn't even like to look up and see how many people were in it because it was too many to fathom. I just greeted each person as they came and we tried to create a system to best serve them all.  Obviously it was beyond what even our machines and supplies could handle and we decided to close at 3:30pm.  It was an amazing experience to see that many people come in and out, but truly it was exhausting! We went through so much milk and pounds upon pounds of hot chocolate!  Once thing I will say is that the entire crowd was SILENT for Obama's speech which was so crazy! The way they all cheered in unison and for a moment it was calm behind the bar. It was so awesome to look out and see the coffeehouse packed with people all visiting DC for the same reason! It made me feel so blessed to live here because so many people traveled miles just to visit and see what I see everyday!

Here are just a few pictures from where I spent Inauguration Day, behind the bar at Ebenezers Coffeehouse: 

For the record after we cleaned up after the crowds...we sat down in the chairs of Ebenezers for about an hour and could not move! We were so exhausted that walking home seemed like a marathon. One of my roommates ended up picking me up and it took us another 1 hour and half to get home because of all the traffic (it is a 15 minute walk from work to my house)! DC is crazy and I live to tell about one of the most historic days America will ever experience!