BarterAroundTheWorld

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I have found some amazing pictures.

The Boston Globe produces a blog called The Big Picture, a news blog using pictures. A lot of these pictures could be described as simply brilliant. They featured the inauguration, of course, and here is the link.

http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2009/01/the_inauguration_of_president.html

Some very amazing photos.

There is one more photo, my dear readers, that you should check out. You might have heard of it by now. The infamous high res, 1,474 pixel, of the inauguration speech. Quite amazing. Not only can you zoom in and see people’s faces, but it gives a good idea of just how crowded it was there. Here is the link to it on Gigapan.

Also, stay tuned for a very special update on a new project we’re undertaking. A post will follow in a day or two! soon.

4000 miles later my roadtrip north ends. I finally made it home at around 6am today. Quite an epic drive.

Anyway, I have uploaded some pictures from the travels so far. You can see them here.

Sorry for the short update, I think I’m coming down with a cold or something

Well, I didn’t get my half smoke like I wanted.

There were very few people selling street food on Inauguration day; and the ones that were, weren’t selling half smokes. So once again, I didn’t get to try one. Maybe next time.

The crowds for Inauguration were massive. We took the metro down into DC around 7am, arrived downtown around 8am. Getting out of the metro was a story in and of itself. I did a picture of how crowded it was, I will upload it later once I find my cable for my camera.

Once out of the metro it took about 45 minutes to walk with the seas of people down the streets to either A) the parade drop off or B) the National Mall to see the inauguration speech.

I had lost my crew right off the metro (they didn’t know how to work a crowd) so I decided to go watch the Inauguration speech since the parade wasn’t scheduled to start till 2:30PM.

A lot of roads were closed off downtown DC, so getting from the Chinatown stop to the Mall was a quest itself. Once I got to the Mall finding a place to stand for a few hours was no problem. There was plenty of room by the time I got to the Mall I worked my way up as close as possible, which was just a bit north of the Washington Monument.

The Inauguration speech was quite good, Bush got boo’d a few times which will always provide lulz. People seem very happy and excited with the new President.

Trying to get out of the Mall was insane. They had put up fences all over like were cattle or something. Some people finally got sick of it and just tore down a fence section. This sped things up no doubt. It took me a good 35-45 minutes to get of there.

Working my way to the only public parade entrance out of 12 entrances, it took about 2.5-3 hours to get through the line. Standing in that line was the worst of the weekend. Cold, windy, standing on concrete not moving hardly at all. I think every 10 minutes we moved a couple feet at a time.

The Parade was really late. It was scheduled to start at around 2:30PM, but didn’t get started till around 4PM. I stayed and got pictures and video as long as I could, leaving when I just didn’t want to deal with the cold anymore.

After the lost comrades found their way back, we went to eat at this Mexican restaurant in Frederick, MD. I spent a good $25 by myself. It was fantastic. I had two enchiladas, one flauta, one taco, and a Heineken.

There was a restaurant/brewery I wanted to check out in Bethesda called Rock Bottom Brewery. The night I was going to go they had $2 beers and half price food. Quite awesome if I say so. Rock Bottom is a micro-brewery and I wanted to see what local brews could be had. But I guess that is also on the todo list for next time along with half smokes (grrrrr).

I’m heading back home now, expect pictures in two to three days!

Update: Photos are here!

So I’ve been up for a while (it’s just now turning to be about 0700) waiting for Chris to get up so we can head to the Inauguration.

Apparently the metro and parking is already terrible. What can I say, it’s not like I didn’t expect it.

Should be pretty awesome though. Bringing both my digital camera and video camera.

We are then leaving the DC area and headed back home tomorrow. I have a feeling these people are getting sick of us staying with them

I’m also gonna try my luck at getting a half smoke today. I’ve been craving one since I got here, just haven’t had cash on me to get one. I will wait in line all day, I don’t care. Today I will get one. What is a half smoke?

As our trip continues, we slowly check off the normal tourist things to see in DC.

Today I guided my fellow travelers to: a flea market in Eastern Market (where some most excellent crabcakes were had I hear), the White House, the Holocaust Museum, and finally to a nice non-crowded restaurant just north of Chinatown.

While the Inauguration is looming on us, traffic is getting worse. Lines are building up and more and more tourists are showing up. It seems like a normal amount of time to get on the metro is about 5 mins at least. Normal times for the DC metro are insanely fast. It is one efficient train system. Unlike Chicago’s Metro system.

At the Eastern Market, I made a purchase of art. It is a psychedelic-ish portrait made using a collage. Quite awesome if I say so.

Pics will be coming. I still have not found my cable for my camera.

We also met up with some fellow couchsurfers for a drink and some food. They were completely rad! We have plans to go to the Zoo with them tomorrow. Couchsurfing.com rules!

I’m not a big touristy person, but having been in Washington, DC before, I acted as a tour guide of sorts for Chris and our other passenger for this trip to DC.

The usual places were hit: the U.S. Capitol, a few Smithsonian museums and Zoo, Washington Monument, and the Lincoln Monument to name a few.

I am disappointed in where we chose to eat Saturday night (Jan. 17th) . It was a Subway So much for trying new food. I am planning to take them to Chinatown for a much more culturally diverse eating experience.

Pics and more info following as I haven’t had much time on my laptop with all the stuff going on.  I don’t even remember the last time I got to sleep in

Tomorrow I leave to pick up Chris for our trip to Washington, DC for the Presidential Inaugration.

Should be an interesting trip. I’ve been to DC once before with some friends for a summer. We, naturally, did all the touristy things. I’m hoping to avoid most of that this time around, however, Chris hasn’t seen all the touristy things in DC yet; so who knows!

I will definitly keep this posted with our travels. Along with pics and some new travel related ventures we’re working on!

Also be on the lookout in the next day or two for an itinerary on places where we’ll be.

I’ve been doing a bit of reading lately and found a love for travel related writing, especially writing involving some of the ‘darker sides’ of travels.  I just found an excellent source of information for those wanting to be a travel writer.

While I have not read the entirity of the website, I’ve read a few of their articles and found they are of really great quality and definitely worth the read if you want to one day write about your travels for pay.

Here is the link: http://www.transitionsabroad.com/listings/travel/travel_writing/index.shtml

So check it out!

I’ve been in Sacramento (technically Rancho Cordova) for the past few days and it’s been a pretty good time. There is a decent public transportation system, so you can stay in the burbs and you can save some money, which is always nice.

I made my way downtown for the first time yesterday and had quite a good time. I met some nice people, had some good beer, and did some good shopping. Oh, I also got to see lots of cheerleaders in skimpy outfits. Gotta love that! There was a big cheer competition in town, so downtown was covered in high school girls.

Here are a few of the things I did yesterday, and a few thoughts on them.

•  River City Brewing Company was a great place to have a beer and some good lunch. I randomly found this place by just wandering around after I got off the train. Located in the mall behind Hard Rock Cafe, River City Brewing Company offers a great selection of brewed in-house beers. At my count, there were eight on the menu, as well as a weekly selection. Many of the beers have a pretty high alcohol content, so watch out! I was pretty buzzed after just one, then again I am quite the lightweight. The food was also excellent. I had the grilled salmon with what I believe to be a corn sauce. The salmon was cooked to perfection on top of a bed of wonderful mashed potatoes. While the potatoes were a bit smoother than I prefer, they had an excellent flavor to them. Get this dish if you go. It was awesome.
•  Old Sacramento is pretty cool! If you have ever been to an ‘old town’ in any other city, this is nothing like those. I’ve been to a few and this was by far the most unique. Old Sacramento is located near the river front and is about the size of two city blocks. There are all sorts of shops, included two tattoo and piercing parlors. The whole area is designed to look like the old west, it’s really different. There are even people dressed in character walking around. I’ve never seen that before in an Old Town.I stopped by one of the piercing parlors to get my septum pierced.  The piercer was very professional, and super cute! She did a good job on it, and it barely stings even just one day later. I didn’t get much of a chance to check out the other shops, but just by looking into the windows, I could tell it was very much a tourist point of interest. If that is the sort of thing you are into while you travel, I suggest you check it out.

If you are interested in traveling around Sacramento and the suburbs cheaply, I suggest you check out the public transportation. It’s about the same price as most cities, so you can expect good deals on tickets for lengthy stays. Since I will be here for about a month, I got a ticket that lets me travel as much as I want while I’m here. It cost me all of $45. Not too shabby if I do say so myself!

I’ll be posting more info on the area as time goes on. I didn’t have a chance to check out the local dives, but as I meet more people, I will definitely get around to it.

To your travels,
Chris