Washington, D.C.: Week Eight: From George Washington to Barack Obama

Once again, this week echoed a presidential theme. You'd figure I would be use to it by now, but eight weeks in, and I still get the chills. On Tuesday, Obama was to give his Presidential Address to Congress. A speech that was expected to be great, but was said to not be one of his best (according to pundits). Either way, whatever side you stand on, you couldn't side step the fact that history was about to be made...once again. Since I knew there was going to be a follow up briefing from last Friday (about Obama's Address), my Congresswoman's Press Secretery let me attend the briefing with him. Little did I know that President Obama's Press Secretery, Robert Gibbs, was going to give the briefing. It was a trip because I always see him on TV giving briefings to the media on behalf of Obama, and yet there I was getting the insight on Obama's speech first hand. Gibbs was breifing all of the House Democrat Press Secreteries (and me) on what Obama was going to address in speech that night. The information he gave us had not even been given to the press yet..so I guess you could say that I was one of the first to know what the president was going to say before the rest of the WORLD did.

That night, as most staffers left the Capitol, I decided to stay behind in the office to see if maybe, just maybe, I could get close to the House Chamber for the speech. Apparently all Press Secreteries were allowed to watch the speech from the Crypt (which is right below the Rotunda, and not far from the House Chamber). The speech was scheduled for 9:00pm EST, so that meant I had to wait about three hours before showtime. Just before the Address, my Congresswoman's Press Secretery took me down and tried to get me through both security and the secret service. As you could probably imagine, that didn't exactly work out. But it was worth a shot. At this point, there was only about 20 minutes until the Address, and I had to decide on whether to take a cab home before it started or watch it in my Congresswoman's office. I didn't want to miss anything, so my Chief of Staff let me go into the Congresswoman's office and watch Address (which I must say, was still pretty cool).

After the Address was over, I walked out of the building and had a view of the Capitol right in front of me. There were Secret Service, Capitol Police, and DC Police roaming the streets. Obama and Biden still hadn't left the Capitol. So I had a front row view of both of them leaving the Capitol in the their motorcades (which were escorted by dozens of motor cops, patrol cars, and Secret Service vehicles). - Not a bad way to end the night.

The next day was Ash Wednesday. Lucky for me, St. Mathews Cathederal is only about a block away from my apartment. So after work, I walked into the Cathederal before the last service, and sat all the way up in the front. As I sat there and looked around at the beautiful architecture, I noticed right in front me a large memorial on the ground that stated "Here rested the remains of President Kennedy at the Requiem Mass, November 25, 1963 before their removal to Arlington where they lie in expectation of a heavenly resurrection." I thought to myself, 'Our first and only president, who was Catholic, had his funeral service under that very same roof...only a few feet away from me.' wow...

Later that week, as President Obama was traveling to discuss his plan for the War in Iraq, I was getting ready for a Virginia tour on Saturday. Everyone one of us who had a ticket for the tour, had to be in the lobby by 7:15 in the morning...which is 4:15am for all my west coast people. The bus departed for the Arlington Cemetery at 7:45am where we spent about an hour and a half checking out all of the highlights. We went from the Changing of the Gaurd at the Tomb of the Unkown Soldier, to the grave sites of President Kennedy, Jackie Kennedy, Bobby Kennedy, and Thurgood Marshall. It was a pretty depressing way to start off the day, but we bounced back and headed over to Mt. Vernon; the home of George Washington. Mt. Vernon is where Washington's plantation was located. We started off the tour with a short video on Wshington's life; From there we toured the home of George Washington (which is still in its original form), walked a bit of the plantation, viewed the tombs of both George and Martha Washington, and finshed off the tour with another short video of the life Washington through all the battels he lead our country through.

Mt. Vernon is probably one of the most beautiful places I have been to. The size of Washington's property is huge; and the view to the Potomic River is amazing. I can definitely see why he loved his plantation as much as he did. From there, we headed over to an all you can eat buffet (which was like Denny's but to a lower degree). Most of us didn't care becuase we were starving!...well at least until we were hurting afterword. After lunch, we headed over to our last stop of the day: Downtown Alexandria - home of Washington's church, office, and places he was known to spend time at. As much as most of us wanted to see everything in the hour we were given, some of us decided to head to a pub instead and just take it easy.

Now I'm going into my ninth week here in DC; believe it or not. It's time for me to plan my last visits in the area before I head back to San Diego in a couple of weeks...oh and finish my 20 page research paper too...