There Was Snow on the Ground in Boston

I flew out of the San Francisco airport at 10:15 p.m. Friday – red-eye flight! It was a very non-eventful flight. Long, but non-eventful. I sat next to two women who were very friendly, and once they found out that I was a journalist, they interrogated me about the latest world events. In a very kind way.

I arrived in Boston a bit early – 6:45 a.m. (Boston time) – and had to trek about seven miles across intense airport turf just to get to my terminal. This trek involved me leaving the “secured area,” which meant I had to go through security AGAIN. You would think this wouldn’t have been a problem at 7 a.m. Guess again. This whole inauguration thing is getting ridiculous. I had to wait a least a half hour to get through security, and I was pretty sure I was going to miss my 8 a.m. flight. Luckily, I got through the line about 7:45 a.m. and rushed over to my gate, boarded, and enjoyed another uneventful flight.

We landed in DC on time – about 9:30 a.m. DC time – and I headed straight to the baggage claim. While I had been waiting in the security line in Boston, the strap on my carry-on bag had broken, so I had a very awkward, very heavy bag attached to one arm, and a very large, very full purse on the other shoulder, and I was ready to just grab my two gigantic suitcases and fight my way to a cab where I could finally sit comfortably. But God didn’t want it to be too easy. After all of the luggage from my flight had come through, I still didn’t have my two suitcases and I was exhausted, having not slept on either flight and not eaten since dinner the night before.

Turns out my luggage hadn’t been transferred fast enough from my first flight to the second, and it was on the next plane coming from Boston only an hour after mine first arrived. This same problem happened to at least five other people, who were right there with me the whole time. We all waited an hour and finally claimed our baggage very excitedly.

I got a cab really easily, and the guy took me straight to the apartments. There was no elevator in the apartment complex, so I made three separate trips up to my third floor apartment, dragging up two hefty, 50 pound suitcases, and one broken carry-on, only to find that was ANOTHER flight of stairs inside of my apartment to get up to the bedrooms. Needless to say. I will have had my fill of stairs by the time I return.

There are six girls living in my apartment. There are two bedrooms, two bathrooms, and one shower. One kitchen, and one common area. Four of us are in one room in bunk beds, sharing a single, fairly decent-sized closet. We make it work pretty well. Then there are two dressers that have five drawers each. So each girl has two-and-a-half drawers, and a single rack in the closet. Yes, Mom, it’s been pretty tight. I’m still not sure where my jeans and sweatshirts are going to go. I need to buy more hangers. We went to Target today, but they didn't have any normal ones. They didn't have a lot of stuff. All the inaugural crazies are cleaning out Target of snack foods and storage containers, for whatever reason.

So yeah. Anyways. About seven of us went to the nearest metro station (Union Station, for those who care), filled our SmartTrip cards (which get us on the metro and the buses really quickly and can be refilled), and headed to Target. We found it just fine, but Karin and I hadn't done a very good job of figuring out beforehand what we needed, and at this point (about 4 p.m. DC time) we still hadn't slept at all and I still hadn't eaten anything. So, our brains probably weren't as sharp as they could have been. Plus, it was SWAMPED.

We headed back to the apartment, and cleaned ourselves up a little before dinner. Then, we had dinner as a whole group - the American Studies (ASP) people and the Washington Journalism (WJC) people. We are sharing the apartment building, and in fact, three of my roommates are here for American Studies. There are definitely way more of them here. But everyone is really nice and fun and friendly.

So we had pizza for dinner and just had talk time as a group. Meeting people and stuff like that. Then we were introduced to all of the staff members for ASP and WJC, and then a pastor from a church in the area came and gave us a little talk. Then, we had prayer time in our apartment groups, and then my roommates and I went back to our apartment and had a short meeting about remaining space (mostly in the bathroom), personal preferences, buying communal resources, etc. And then we had a large group meeting again to go over community standards kind of stuff and safety reminders. Then we were free. Free to try and make the internet work, which finally occurred gloriously about half and hour ago. The first part of this was written in a Word document. Ha.

So that's it so far. It was a stressful journey to get here, but I'm here, I'm pretty well settled, and I think I'm going to have a really good time. It's FREEZING. And the wind pretty much feels like it's slicing your face. But that's life here in the nation's capital.

And just a thought to leave you with for tonight:

Many residents of Washington, D.C. are opting to LEAVE the city for the inauguration.

This is going to be crazy.