On Monday January 21st – also Martin Luther King Jr. Day – we headed out early in the morning to be present for the inauguration of President Barack Obama to his second term of presidency.

Although the crowds were significantly smaller than his first term (about 600,000 people turned out this year) there was still a lot of excitement and energy.

We arrived about two hours early and soon became sandwiched into the crowd. As the start of the ceremony grew closer, small American flags began to make their way through the crowd. I kid you not, hundreds of thousands of American flags – enough for every person in the crowd.

President Obama’s speech was hard hitting – and I was impressed at how partisan it was. He stood up for some true liberal values, let’s hope he tries to put action in front of his words in his last four years.

Also – security was in full force. Check out the snipers! You could see them dotting the tops of all the buildings.

On the night before the inauguration, Erin caught this picture of the Capitol brightly lit up in anticipation of the festivities.

Leaving the Mall was harder then getting there! There were literally hundreds of thousands of people trying to leave at the same time. Several of the metro stops around the area were closed, as well as many of the roads. We walked probably at least 2 miles like cattle down the streets of DC before finding an open metro.
After waiting for about 10 minutes for a train, we shoved our selves into a car, packed like sardines, only to find out that the train in front of us was dead in the tunnel. We were told to unload and had to fina another way to make the trek back to our car. After some careful negotiation of the metro lines, we arrived back in Virginia where we parked the car, and began our next trek of the day – Dulles International Airport.

This part of the day was uneventful, and I made it in plenty of time to my flight gate – and even enjoyed a little time in the lounge. My arrival in Frankfurt was amazing – snow gently falling, and a lounge full of gummies and German beer! I don’t think I could ask for much more!

All is well thus far in Doha – we are staying in the same hotel as last year, but the whole thing has been gloriously remodeled! My room is huge, and luxiourous. I have in fact just found out that my room has its very own doorbell – because the nice room service man was coming by to find out what time I would like him to clean my room.

Erin has kept me posted on the freezing temps that hit DC right after I left – in fact I did miss the first real snow 🙁 I love snow, and Erin loves warm. So, right now our locations should probably be swapped. Doha and DC snow pictures will be coming soon…

For now, I am off to the gym after a bit of work, and out to the souq tonight.