Ten days ago, we set out for America. We took a direct flight from Abu Dhabi and arrived in 14 hours. We spent the first two days in Brooklyn with Zack and Kristin recovering and testing the cold weather. Rented a car, drove to DC. No traffic, so we arrived at Tom and Kellie's in Mt Rainier in about five hours. It was Monday evening, and Iola was adjusting to the east coast time zone better than we were, but we stayed up and visited with Graeme and his girlfriend Louisa, Matt and Jen who were in from Boston for the inauguration and Tom and Kelly hosted in their cute house that has been retrofitted for their two-year old, Henry (no dining room, all pillows and rugs and toys). Henry was excited to see the "tiny" baby, but then got a tiny bit jealous over the next three days when Kellie held Iola.

Woke up on Tuesday at the crack of dawn and took a special bus downtown. Walked along K street toward the White House; the whole city a festival. Food tents lining every inch of space, the walking crowd gradually getting bigger and filling every lane of traffic. Said goodbye to John who went to hang out with the Emirati students in the NYU-Abu Dhabi class, and kept walking with Iola, past the World Bank, past the DAR Constitution Hall where I graduated from SAIS. The hall had opened its doors to anyone needing to get warm -- some irony there, or maybe just evolution. Walked across the World War Two memorial, past hundreds of portopotties (9,000 total), toward the Washington Monument. Thought, hey, I'll go down to L'enfant Plaza and see my old office building so I steered myself that way. Changed my mind when I realized I couldn't, no way, ford the current of people walking towards the mall from that direction. The K street crowd, coming from the north, had been mostly white; these were mostly black. The city coming together.

Started to get nervous about the cold, the crowds, and Iola's hunger. She let out increasingly loud protests. I skirted the edges, by the dormant cherry trees. Looked in handicapped portopotties to see about nursing out of the wind: yuck, kept moving. Found the Red Cross tent, and hesitated by it, wondering was I a legitimate user of Red Cross resources? The volunteers outside thought so (or thought so of Iola), and ushered us (her) in, gave us a big fuzzy blanket and used it to shield while I nursed. Went on our way again, this time double-wrapped in the blanket, and by now it was almost 11am. Went back by the reflecting pool and watched the 'jumbotrons,' the crowd still gathering, but I couldn't stay still without getting cold, and realized what that meant for Iola, so I kept walking. I walked north toward Dupont and ducked in a starbucks near SAIS to watch the swearing-in on TV. I wrote about it here. 

Finding our way home was difficult. I couldn't remember where the special buses picked us up, and the lines waiting for the metro were one to three-hour waits. I had walked up to U street to look at Ben's Chili Bowl (and see if I could get myself a half-smoke). The line went down the alley. They had a policeman stationed to make sure people didn't spill into the street. He chastised me for stepping into the road trying to get around the line. Kept walking down to Chinatown. By the time I was at H and 4th, Iola was fed up. Her nose was cold and she didn't like it. I flagged down the first bus I saw, headed for Fort Totten, and figured if I could just sit somewhere warm and head out of the city, even in the wrong direction, things would be better. A man gave us his seat and Iola was immediately happy again. We thawed and then felt brave enough to step off the bus and hope for another one, going in the right direction, along Rhode Island ave. We walked for a ways up towards Home Depot. The special inauguration bus from Mt Rainier passed us, but I ran and flagged it down. We were so happy to get home and see Kellie and Henry. John and Tom arrived an hour later.

That was day four of our trip. We spent Wednesday visiting friends and the Chronicle of Higher Education, hindi friends in Bethesda, Doug and Josh in the evening, and Thursday John renewed his drivers license, we drove past our house on Quintana (peach tree is still alive). Picked up an extremely safe car seat in Columbia, MD, and got to Brooklyn and met John's parents by 9pm.

I have to stop writing, but there were four more days in Brooklyn. My parents came, we had a big brunch and saw a lot of friends. We could have used five more days in DC, and a few more in NY. I feel bad I didn't get to see some close friends, or co-workers. It's all a lot harder with a baby and an inauguration that brought millions to town. Now we're home in Abu Dhabi and it feels good. Jackson is very snuggly.