The Rally was scheduled to be from noon until 3pm so we thought we would be doing well to start our journey around 10-11am-ish. Oh we were so wrong. There were lines like I have never seen before in my life to get onto the metro. Upon closer examination we found out that it was the line just to buy tickets for the metro. Thankfully we were able to scrounge up tickets for everyone that was going downtown without having to wait in those lines. We were able to breeze through the turnstiles and make our way down to the platform pretty easily. When the car pulled up to the Dunn-Loring Metro stop (one from the end of the orange line), it was full. Or at least what we thought was "full". Haha, what an understatement. We all piled on to the car much to the chagrin of the current passengers. It didn't get better at any other stop we made. By the time we decided to exit the metro I was literally squeezed in by people on all sides of me. We played telephone through the crowd of people to communicate our plan to exit and even then we were wondering if we would all be able to climb out in time. Thankfully, the current passengers wanted more room on the train so they were happy to make a hole for those leaving.
We made our way from the Foggy Bottom stop down to the mall with droves of other people. As we got closer the crowd started to pack in and you could see people taking pictures of everyone and every sign. Honestly, the signs were the best reason to go in person. Most of the good ones were captured by people and put on this website. I am proud to say I saw a number of those first hand. We didn't really hear too much of the Roots playing which kicked off the event. We did hear John Stewart make his entrance and Stephen Colbert calling in from his Fear Bunker. We heard the crowd chanting something that sounded like "G-A, G-A, G-A". We found out after watching the Rally on TV that he had come up in a Chilean Miner mock pod and was really chanting "Chi-lie". We were down there long enough to hear Ozzy and then the O'Jays, but left a little after 2 to avoid what would inevitably be even worse crowds going home. Hey, we still had a Halloween party to get to.
While we didn't really get to see and hear everything, it was really amazing to see all the people that came out and all the signs that people made. One of the members of the crowd was passing by us saying, "This is one of the nicest crowds I have ever been in" and I agree with her. As many people as there were, there was no shoving, screaming, and elbowing. There was a lot of "Excuse me, Pardon Me" (as seen on a sign as well). It was definitely an experience to remember.
