Women's March on Washington, Part 3

Washington, D.C.

We're finally here. We're literally in the middle of the street, in a major intersection, near the main stage. All we can see is people. People and people and people. I'm on my phone, so I'm only going to get through a few sentences, but I'll finish the rest later. 

When we got to the train station, it was packed with people. Way more than we could count. We got our metro cards, and then got in line to go up the escalator. But they were only letting so many people up at a time, so as to not overload the train platform. They only let people up every 10-15 minutes or so, and every time a group went up, everyone loudly cheered.


 
Left was us standing in line for the metro passes, Right was Christi and me finally on the escalator!

By the time we got to the escalator, we had been waiting for over an hour, and I think all four of us were more excited about getting on the escalator than we ever had been in our lives. The platform was PACKED. Even with transport people limiting our numbers up there, it was a little disconcerting.

While we waited, we checked out the signs, and I took pictures of some of my favorites:

The train was so packed as to be incredibly uncomfortable, and even physically painful, as it became fuller and fuller, and literally impossible to control our own positioning. But the energy was filled with excitement. There were a lot of laughs on the train, and we watched the people on the platforms at each stop, as we got closer and closer to our stop, look at us with wide eyes and shaking heads as they realized they were NOT getting on our train! 

We saw an advertisement for the Amazon Prime show, "The Man in the High Castle" (if you haven't seen it, DO), that was absolutely perfect for the day of the march. We tried to get a selfie with it, but couldn't fit everything in it, so a fellow passenger offered to help.

When we got off the train, that station was jam packed too, and it took us about 20 minutes to get out! The escalator was turned off though, and it was a steep climb of something like 100 steps...and I hadn't worn my knee braces. So Mandy wound up going up one step ahead of me, and pulled as much of my body weight up as she could, so I didn't have to put the stress on my knees. She'd do that a few times before the day was over. Bless her. The end station was so full, the transport people told us not to swipe our cards, just to keep the crowd moving through. This happened multiple times as well. 

We got outside and started our mass trek towards the march. Where we were standing, we could see a little of the Washington Monument, though it was extremely foggy that day. There were So. Many. People. 

We heard Michael Moore, a Congresswoman from California, the female mayor of D.C., and a few others, before we headed to find a bathroom. It took us over an hour to go down one block, and get in to the long row of port-a-potties. Now we're standing closer to the main stage, listening to Scarlet Johansson. The atmosphere is amazing, and I can't believe I'm here. There are people as far as the eye can see in every direction. Women of all ages- some clearly in their eighties, in wheelchairs, a surprising number of men- approximately 25% of our crowd? And entire young families with their children. People of all nationalities and ethnicities...I love this.