Friday, January 23, 2009

fortyfive: i'm a milliner

in the past three weeks i have crocheted three hats. one for each of my parents and one for myself. i was inspired by a hat my mom made me a few years ago (i did not take a picture or it, because i lost it somewhere in my room) and a hat my friend jenn was wearing during the inauguration. jenn has been after a knitted beret ever since we saw the movie elizabethtown (note the red hat kirsten dunst is wearing) and she was finally able to find a similar one this winter. i was unsure how my version of the beret would turn out (the top two pictures), because i did not use a pattern, but i think it looks surprisingly good.

fortyfour: i went to the inauguration

i went to obama's inauguration on tuesday. it was a pretty amazing.
i went to the inauguration with three other friends. we met up at my house and were aiming to leave around 7:30, but didn't get out of the house until around 8. we were suppose to take a bus into the city, but after talking to a number of people that didn't know anything about the bus we decided to brave the crowds on the metro. after seeing several trains go by without taking any passengers (because they were totally full) we decided to take an outward bound train and stay on it until it went towards the city. it took about 15 minutes to get to the last stop on the line, but then another 1 1/2 hours to get into dc (a ride that would usually take about 20 minutes). everyone was excited and towards the end of the ride people were singing patriotic songs.
we got on the mall at around 10:30 and were able to find some space with a good view of one of the jumbotrons. the crowd was pretty partisan (there were boos when bush came out and cheers when the clintons & obama (obviously) were introduced). once the swearing-in was over, there was a mass exodus out of the mall. my friends and i decided to leave after bush's helicopter left.
the crowd outside of the mall was pretty crazy. everyone was basically trapped into a little car park with no exit, except between a couple bushes. the crowd was so thick i couldn't see anything but people and could not negotiate my way around the group. luckily, the current of the crowd was going in the direction we needed to go (towards the lincoln memorial and out of dc).
we decided to walk out of the city via memorial bridge. the entire time we were walking i felt like i was a refugee, because the streets were lined with police and soldiers. before the inauguration someone told me that there were more members of the military in dc for the inauguration than in iraq. i am not sure if that is right, but i believe it.
we decided to watch the inauguration parade at my house which turned out to be a good idea, since the parade started a couple hours late.
below are some pictures from inauguration. i found a photo editing site called poladroid, which is why all of the pictures look like polaroids. here are some pictures from the inauguration that i edited with poladroid (be prepared to see a lot more polaroids posted):
people at the bottom of the washington monument
the crowd after the swearing-in ceremony
outside the white house a few days before the inauguration