Inauguration Slideshow 1

Great job Kris!!

America's Song

This is a song that was written specifically for this event! :)

A Day of Goodbyes

Thursday was our final day of getting delegates to the airport and saying goodbye to a wonderful staff of adults. Every trip I go on and the more people I meet and friends I make... this day becomes harder and harder. I can honestly say the people I have worked with and met on this program have become some of my best friends, including my wonderful co-author of this blog (MWAH!!). It's amazing to me how people from the opposite coast can show and share support, friendship, and love that I feel will last a very long time.

This was such a momentous week and something I feel so blessed that I was able to be a part of. My only regret is not getting more of an opportunity to talk to my delegates regarding what the inauguration and the week meant to them. I know it is something they will never forget, and they are the reason I love doing these programs over and over again. As a special education teacher who deals every day with struggling students who have dreams I fear they may not be able to attain because of their disabilities, working with these wonderful students here through People to People gives me hope. The naive eyes of these students give me inspiration and help with my own continued desire to learn. I have an enthusiasm for this program, unlike any I have ever had before, a definitive belief in the mission of People to People to find "peace through understanding," and I love how much I have learned from my delegates over the past 3 years. I am counting down the days for April to come and I can embark on my 10th trip with this wonderful organization in a brand new role as primary leader!

Wednesday, January 21

Wednesday was by far the best touring day since we didn't have to deal with nearly as much road closures and such. After breakfast at another buffet place, we were off to explore memorials and museums for the day. Our first stop was the Korean Memorial. I have to say it is an eerie memorial, but very meaningful as well. The looks on the soldiers faces are so real and serious to a point where it is almost scary. I love you can look into the engraved wall and see the reflection of the soldiers.

After this we headed to the Lincoln Memorial. Our DM said this is her favorite memorial because she feels like when she goes to see Lincoln he can see into her soul. hmmmm.... don't think I've ever gotten that from a man built from rock. :) It is a memorial I love to see and walk around because of how massive it is and the message that is surrounding it. Delegates were amazed at how small it made them feel.

Before we headed off to our appointment at the Spy Museum, we walked the students through the Vietnam Memorial. I think they were overwhelmed and shocked to see all the different names on the wall. One student knew of a friend of her grandfather whose name was on the wall and was brought to tears. Memorials like these can be eye opening and fill your heart with sadness, but also appreciation for what our troops do for us and I send them a personal thank yous all the time.

The Spy Museum was a big hit with the delegates, as it always is. They love climbing through venting systems, seeing the James Bond car and all other kinds of fun spy gadgets. You can't take any pictures there so that is why you won't see anything of it on this blog.

We left the spy museum and headed off to the VERY busy Union Station for lunch. I was afraid to the let the kids go off on their own, but they did very well and everyone showed up at our meeting spot without getting lost!! (even my wanderer Ben!) About a half hour after leaving lunch and heading to the American History Museum, we got a phone call that Union Station had briefly been closed for a suspicious item in the station. Luckily we got in there when we did and out safe and sound.

At the American History Museum and the Newseum we let the kids explore these museums on their own. Both the museums were newly reopened either from renovations or relocations. For anyone looking to go explore the city of DC, I highly recommend these two museums to anyone. Of course, I particularly love the pop culture area of American History to see Kermit, Oscar, the actual top hat of President Lincoln and also love the room with the First Ladies dresses. Absolutely BEAUTIFUL. There were dresses in there from Martha Washington's to Laura Bush. The Newseum also has a wonderful exhibit on 9-11. It has a special place in my heart since I live so close to the city there are many people I know that were affected by this tragedy/attack.

I think by this point the students were pretty wiped out. We headed off to dinner in Chinatown. For many students this was a new experience and they LOVED it! Our Dm informed us that the Chinatown in DC used to be a lot bigger, but now it is sadly only 2 city blocks long.

To end the night, we drove by the Capitol and walked around the World War II Memorial. The students enjoyed getting the opportunity to see and stand by the part of the Memorial that represented their home state.

As a fun way to close our time with everyone on our bus and the amazing experience in the city of DC this week, our bus driver lead a karaoke session with the entire bus! WOW! What a great week!

Tuesday, January 20th

WHAT A DAY!!! This is defnitely a day I won't soon forget, and I think the 2 million other people that were there in the city with me would agree. I had to wake up at 4AM this morning and our bus was finally on its way by 5:30 (was supposed to be 5, but some students on other buses "slept in"). A trip that normally would have taken us half an hour, it took us 2 hours to get into D.C. I have never seen so much traffic in my life at that hour of the morning! By 7:30, we had found a place to stand on the mall with our 48 students. The view at 7:30 was absolutely beautiful!! We were not too far away, but luckily we were close enough to a screen where we could see everything. At the beginning, it wasn't too cold, but even with three pairs of sox and a pair of Uggs.. my feet were still pretty cold. At first, it was easy to get to the port-a-botties, or as my friend Rachel from Idaho calls them, honeybuckets. We took a few kids to use them right away, but a short time after we took them, you could not even move to get to them and be able to find your way back. Students got pretty cold, but thank goodness for hand warmers! After about an hour of standing there we realized that our DM, Jo Ann had lost us. It was easy to do with the amount of people that rapidly showed up after 8AM. The experience of being there is nothing I can explain. The cheers from the crowds were contagious, and even if you weren't an Obama supporter at some point, it was hard not to get lost in the enthusiastic moment. It was an extrememly exciting time and I felt like there was such pride in the country. Below are some videos of a few small samples of what we saw and heard.

Once everything was over, in an effort to keep all of us together and safe, we waited for the crowd to disperse a bit. Since we had lost our DM and she was not able to get cell service that day, I had to lead our group back to the bus.... somehow with 2 million people dispersed everywhere throughout the city, we were able to keep everyone together and get back to the bus safe and sound.

By this point, it was time to head back to the hotel and get ready for our own little inaugural ball in the hotel. The students were able to have a sit down dinner and dance to the music of a live band. The hotel also provided a cardboard cutout of President Obama, so students (and the adults) took lot of pictures with the new President. Overall... A WONDERFULLY EXHAUSTING DAY!!!

Monday, January 19th

This was the beginning of many early morning days for all of us. Wake up call was at 5AM to get to breakfast at a mall food court called Crystal City. They had a pretty good breakfast buffett set up for the kids, and we only had one kid pass out and needed a 9-1-1 phone call. haha! (the student was fine by the way... think she was just dehydrated)... which seems to happen quite a bit.

Anyway, after our morning meal, we were off to Arlington. I love going to Arlington and teaching the students all about the services they have there, watching the tomb of the unknown soldier, seeing Kennedy's grave... the list goes on... there is so much history there. One of my favorite parts was when it started snowing... some of the delegates had never seen snow before so, it was awesome to see their reactions to it. The picture below shows them trying to eat it, but you can't really see the snow.

I think the students got a lot out of their experience at Arlington and seemed to really appreciate everything that was there, which is not always the case from the delegates.

After Arlington we went to one of my favorite Memorials, the FDR Memorial. This is the first time I had seen this memorial in the winter... all the waterfalls were frozen, but it was still absolutely beautiful. I do hope I get there again in the Spring when I come back over Spring break for my next People to People trip. Students said with all the quotes all over the memorial, they felt they learned a lot about FDR and what he stood for. I did learn that he really did not want a memorial built in his honor, but there was an organization representing the disabled who raised money in honor of him and had this built anyway.

Once we finished touring the FDR memorial, we had lunch at the Ronald Reagan building where students had to go through security just to get into the building. They didn't quite understand why we had to do that, so I just told them it was a top secret-security lunch. They seemed satisfied with that answer! :) Once we were finished with lunch, we went to the National Portrait Gallery. My favorite picture was the one of the liscense plates... see if you can make out what they are saying.

Mount Vernon was our next stop on the tour for the day. This is another favorite site of mine. The line to get into the main house was too long, but we walked around the estate. our first stop was the greenhouse where "Dr. Craig" talked to us about being General Washington's doctor and his best friend. Our DM asked him, "Well, I hate to bring this up, but how do you defend yourself when it seems you are the one ultimately responsible for Washington's death?" Talk about AKWARD!! Well, he went on to explain how he cut open Washington and bled him. First one pint, then two, then three, then four. Well by the time her got to four one of my boys went completely WHITE and I had to remove him from the Greenhouse. In fact, we thought he had passed out, but he swears he didn't. Made for an interesting afternoon. The view from the back of the estate is beautiful!!!

To end the day, we ate at the old Country Buffett, which really excited the kids for some odd reason and then we went to the Iwo Jima Memorial. It was pretty cold out so the students only lasted about 5 or ten minutes before they were ready to leave. The picture that this memorial was based on was a Pulitzer Prize winning photo. You can try to make out the explanation of it all below.

Hail to the Chief

Day Two

Ok, Day two was our first official day of touring the city. We ran into a few snags, and if I can find a picture of the map, I will post it here so you can see how many of the streets were closed that made it extremely difficult for our charter bus to get around town. Our first event was to attend an event where guest speakers Mary Eisenhower, President Eisenhower's granddaughter, and Ken Walsh, who is the Chief White House correspondent for U.S. News and World Report spoke to the delegates about the background of People to People and President Obama. Look for video postings on this soon.


View Larger Map

After we left there, we took the kids to lunch at Buca Di Beppo... feeding 3 buses of children in one restaurant is always a challenge for us, since that was about 150 students, but the restaurant handled it beautifully and the food was fantastic. As in typical People to People fashion, there was already a set menu and preordered food. I was extremely proud of the students, since they did not complain a bit and ate everything in site. When we finished lunch, it was off to see Shear Madness at the Kennedy Center. We were able to walk around a bit and tour the Kennedy center before seeing the show. If you have not yet seen this... it is a must! ABSOLUTELY hysterical!! Following the show we were able to go see the White House. Even though it was night time, we were able to get all the way up to the gates and take a picture from the side. The students were able to see the encasing the President sat in to watch the parade also. They got a little spooked when a random group of men walked up to them and started rapping a song about Obama and used words like they would "kill for your momma," but we discussed how everyone has different ways of expressing themselves to show support. Dinner was in the Pentagon City food court, which we almost missed since our crazy DM didn't get us there till almost 8PM... somehow there were still two places open and were kind enough to stay open till all our delegates were fed. Back to the hotel we went and the kiddies were off to bed!! :)

Catch Up

Ok, in trying to catch up here, I only have a few minutes until we get ready for our inaugural ball so I'll do a bit now and some later. We have been getting up on average around 5 AM each day and today we had the lucky honor of getting up at 4AM to start heading to the inauguration. Needless to say, I am quite beat, but still really excited to be here!! This has been quite an experience.

Now, to back track a bit...

Day one with the kids, registration day, was probably the smoothest registration day I have ever experienced. Since this is my 9th trip, that's really saying something. I hope things ran just as smoothly at Kris's hotel! Like he mentioned before, being at separate hotels that are almost an hour apart does make things a bit more challenging to coordinate here. Meeting my new delegates was a lot of fun, and I was extremely happy to see all of them have done a P2P program before. Most of the students on this program are almuni, but there a few newbies here and there. They are a funny group of 7th graders, which is right up my ally since I so enjoy teaching 7th grade!! They were all quite exhausted by the end of the night... some traveled on their own from California, Illinois, Texas, and so on.

Day two... oh lordy... I need more time for that one... my delegate manager (a glorified term on program for our tour guide), is well... I guess the best way to describe her is smart with a large side of crazy. I will post some more details hopefully tonight after the ball! :)

Difficulty

Being at a different hotel than my co-author has posed a few problems. I cannot hand her a disc or media card and tell her to post videos or pictures that she requested. I told my students to record certain sections of speeches, take pictures of certain things and then give unto me their media cards for my postings. Tonight was a late night, hence the late (or early) posting. The student's first day of travel went fairly well. There were a few problems the delegates had with the dress code. On a conus People to People programme, students are required to follow the uniform guidelines. We generally wear Khaki pants and polo shirts. In a sea of travel groups this makes it very easy for me to pick them out in a crowd. Find the most uniform students and they must belong to me. The students are upset because they aren't allowed to wear jeans. You come thousands of miles, spend a load of money for a leadership honing experience, and you whine about not being able to wear jeans??? I suppose the fact that I grew up poor has made me a wee bit insensitive to this. Uniforms are a grand grand part of programming. I know its late and I shouldn't gripe about such things. The day was grand, the amount of people in the District is overwhelming. I've been downtown on a weekend during big events and the city was less full than today. It looked like a busy day in Manhattan.
I love the students and staff, they are just tired from their first day. Tomorrow they will be DEAD tired.

Training... Training... and more TRAINING!

Well, the last two days have been about... yup... you guessed it... training. I have been trying to post a few videos on here but have not been able to get them to work as of yet, but I'm still trying. Yesterday, we had some invigorating traing on student safety, security, and the overall itinerary of the program. It was interesting to learn some of the ins and outs of the security going on in the Washington, D.C. city right now and for inauguration day. We briefy discussed some of it with the students, but when you start to discuss snipers on top of buildings and the FBI... things get a little scary for these 6th and 7th graders. The only vehicles permitted to even enter the city will be buses. We are being given special permission to park on 12th street, but will still have to walk from there to the Lincoln Memorial, which will be our "resting" spot for the day. I think the students are super excited, which gives me even more enthusiasm for being here. I love teaching and seeing the world through their eyes. I am amazed to see how many other different student groups there are here this week as well. We are by far, though, the largest of the groups. I guess we have Dwight Eisenhower to thank for that, since he is the one that started this program to begin with! :)

As the days go on, I hope to add a little more to this blog as I'm sure Kris will as well when he has time. For now, here is a video on a student's perspective as to why the inauguration is an important event.

Let the Adventures Begin

Day one was all about connecting and reconnecting. Our first official day here I have met an array of wonderful educators from all over the country. I am rooming with a teacher from Richamond, VA and am working with three other educators on my bus from Missouri, Washington state, and a friend of mine from New Jersey. Collectively, there are over 40 teacher leaders here just at the hotel where I am volunteering. We have been told we have one of the largest delegations/number of students arriving tomorrow out of all 7 hotels that People to People is using this week. There will be around 400 students arriving here on Saturday for check-in. Our delegates will be 5th, 6th, and 7th graders. Today was mostly about getting to know each other as a staff. I feel very fortunate to be here at this hotel and we have a very experienced and dependable to staff.
Once the major events of the day were done, I was able to reconnect with many other teacher leaders I was worked with over the past 9 trips with this program. It is amazing to me just how many people across the country I have met. The friendships I have established with these people have been absolutely wonderful and enriching. I feel so lucky to be a part of this program and look forward to the new people I will be getting to know this week.

Stay tuned for more updates......

History of the Inauguration

Here are some fun little facts about the Presidential Inauguration:

*First Inauguration was of George Washington in New York City On April 30, 1789. This was supposed to take place on March 4, but since the winter was so bad not enough congressmen could get to New York City to count all the votes until April 6th. Even then, it took several days for George Washington to hear he had won.

*John Adams, George Washington's vice-president at the time, wanted to call him "His Most Benign Highness," but the congressional committee settled on "President of the United States."

*Many of the order of events that occured in Washington's inauguration, still continue today, such as after the swearing in there is an inaugural address (speech), and during his second term he was sworn in by a judge, which is how all the presidents are sworn in now.

*Thomas Jefferson was the first to be sworn in at what we know now to be our nation's capital, Washington, D.C.

*During Jefferson's second inauguration, after he was sworn in, he rode on horseback from the Capitol to the President's House (the name they used to use for the White House), with music and various people from the Navy Yard. This procession eventually gre into what we know as the Inaugural Parade.

*The first inaugural ball was held at Long's Hotel in Washington, D.C. in honor of our fourth President, James Madison. Soon after they started to grow...Martin Van Buren had two balls, President William Henry Harrison had three balls, and they kept getting bigger developing into what we have today, which is several parties held across the country in honor of the new President.

*Technology also played a role in the inauguration: 1st, on the members of Congress were a part of George Washington's inauguration, twenty years later at James Madison's inauguration, his entire speech was published in the newspaper. When James Polk took the oath, Samuel Morse tapped the news on his telegraph. James Buchanan was the first president to have his picture taken for his inauguration in 1857. Forty years later, the highlights of William Mckinley's inauguration was video taped. You could listen to Calvin Coolidge's address on the radio in 1925, and then finally in 1949, Harry Truman's inauguration was the first to ever be televised. The biggest boom in technology occurred in 1997 during Bill Clinton's inauguration was on the radio, televised, AND could be watched live on the internet.

*George Washington had the shortest inaugural address for his second term. It was only 135 words, whereas William Hnery Harrison gave the longest address, which was 8,445 words and took almost two hours.

These are just some highlights... I challenge you to find more!

Think you know enough to master an inauguration quiz? Try it out?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/onpolitics/inauguration2001/quiz.htm

Not long until Game time

I write this without my fellow contributor's knowledge. I don't think she'll be sore with me as I am to help her with her project. We plan on posting daily logs about our experiences on the programme, the mini adventures, and the difficulties surrounding conducting a program with an extra 4million people present. Washington DC wasn't really built to handle that many people. Hotels are all booked, friends of friend's houses are all full up, floor space is limited. I feel rather lucky that I'll be staying at the Hyatt Reston, enjoying a bit of that comfort. I will have a good staff, every experienced with programs, with problems, full of excitement. Kathy has been with the program a donkey's age and she offers great experience, I do hope to redeem myself in her eyes as I feel I have a lot to learn from her. I don't know Damon so well and this will give me an opportunity to work with new people. I am excited to see the students. The problems in my life seem to melt away when I see the delegates every morning. Some people go to church to get a spirit recharge, I go on program. I meed so many new and interesting people, people that amaze me. I don't think anyone really knows how grateful I am to be with the organization. I was never a child of privilege, but I feel like one now.
Cheers