1st Day in D.C.

Today was the first day of the seminar, where we heard from many guest speakers. Dana Bash, CNN's Congressional Correspondent, was one guest speaker. She spoke of her experiences covering John McCain's campaign and other senators and representatives on Congress. It was interesting to learn that she preferred to speak to the senators and representatives rather than the president because of the difficulty in getting access to speak with him. This must be the result of the advisors surrounding the president. She was also quick to defend all political parties. After lunch we went on a bus tour to many memorials. The National Mall was lined with port-a-potties and construction continued in front of the Lincoln memorial. Seeing the progress made me even more excited about the actual inaugural ceremony, but I don't know how 250,000 people are going to be able to see the ceremony in the little designated viewing section.

The Inauguration Seminar officially began this morning at the University of The District of Columbia Auditorium on Connecticut Avenue in Washington D.C. The temperature outside was a cold 27 degrees, and the temperature inside the auditorium was about 80. Talk about extremes...we alternated between being thankful we had on our warm layers and wishing that we didn't have them on.
The morning session lasted for about 4hrs. Steve Bell, the Washington Center Faculty Directer, Dana Bash, Senior Congressional Correspondent for CNN, and Michael Genovese of Loyola Marymount University were the speakers. We were released at 12:30 for lunch and small group meetings. Around 3:00, we boarded a bus for a tour of Washington D.C. with stops at the U.S. Marine Corps Memorial, better known as the Iwo Jima Memorial, Lincoln Memorial, Vietnam War Memorial, Korean War Memorial, World War II Memorial, Jefferson Memorial, Franklin D. Roosevelt Memorial, and ended with a drive by the west side of the U.S. Capital. The bus dropped us off at Union Station where we dashed off to find a place to get warm and find something to eat.
The day ended with a ride back to our apartment on the Metro. As we were waiting on the platform to transfer from one Metro line to another, a man standing near us began to sing very loudly, in a not so pleasant voice, a song that none of us could recognize. What a way to end our first day! ï¿1/2

Test by McCuan