I'm not going to try to explain what the rally was for, because I don't completely understand it. What I could get out of it was that the Republicans had a rally a month ago run by Glenn Beck, and the Democrats of the country wanted to have their own rally to make fun of how ridiculous the Republicans are. It was a combination of three things: Halloween, making fun of the Republican rally, and rallying for anything at all you wanted to rally for. People were there in their Halloween costumes, because it was the day before the holiday, and many people had signs which either were standing up for whatever they believed in, or were making fun of the Republican signs.
I hope I didn't just get the rally's objective completely wrong, but what I observed is factual, so let me explain my travels.
I didn't sleep the night before. The night before was the night when I went to the Shabbat dinner and then watched Harry Potter with friends. After we watched the second Harry Potter movie, it was about 2:00 in the morning, so all I had to do was stay up for one more hour. Yes, that's right. The club that ran the trip to the DC rally was the Chefs Sustaining Agriculture Club, and they wanted us all to go to support sustainable agriculture. There were about twelve people that ended up going on the trip, and it cost each of us $45.00. This included transportation and food.
The schedule given to us that were going said to meet at St. Andrew's Circle (on campus) at 4:00 in the morning. After that, we'd get in our carpooling groups and head off for the six to seven hour drive south. I called shotgun on the way down, and got a more comfortable journey, because there were five people in the car I went in.
We arrived sometime around 10:30, and then we went to the College Park Metro Station in Maryland. This is the metro stop that's within walking distance of the University of Maryland. There was an enormous line to get tickets for the train. It was insanely long. We asked some people at the front of the line, and they had been waiting about an hour and a half.
Our group leader snuck into the front of line and got us all tickets. This completely cut down on the time it would've taken to get on the metro. By the way, our group was mostly all in our chef whites. This was the first time I'd worn my custom whites, and it was awesome.
When we finally got on the train, it was packed. It was really, really packed. Most people on the train were on their way to the same place, but that didn't mean they were all getting off at the same stop, so it got better at times. Most people were in their costumes too.
We got off at the Chinatown stop, I think, and we followed the trail of people onto the street level. Once we were on the street, we continued to follow the people toward the rally, which was held at the Washington Mall. The area where the rally was being held, and all of the areas around it, were completely flooded with people. We were about an hour late, so it had already gotten well underway. As we came to a spot where our group wanted to be for the rest of the event, we could hear Ozzy Osbourne sing to one of his songs over the loudspeakers.
So many damn famous people were there. They came out perpetually, and it was fun to see how many they got to be at the rally. From my memory, I believe that I was there to see Ozzy Osbourne, Stephen Colbert, Jon Stewart, Kareem Abdul Jabbar, the Mythbusters guys, Kid Rock, Cheryl Crow, Mick Foley, and Tony Bennett.
There were funny signs everywhere.
We also saw a senior citizen rock band.
When the rally was over, my group went back to the subway so that we could make it to our 5:15 reservation at a restaurant called Farmers & Fishers. This is a high-end restaurant that is completely sustainable. The restaurant was down this big alley which was kind of like an outdoor mall. There was a cool pool-thing in the middle, and just beyond it was the harbor.
I got an appetizer of fried calamari, which came with marinara sauce and garlic aioli butter. This was fantastic. The squid wasn't very chewy, it had great flavor, and combining the aioli and red sauce made a great flavor. Then I had a personal pizza with chorizo, chicken, and cilantro sauce. It was quite good, and I'm upset that I wasn't able to finish as much as I wanted to. I couldn't take any back with me either, because I wouldn't be back for another eight or nine hours.
After dinner, we parted ways at the metro station, and once we got back to the car, I got placed in the backseat. I slept for about an hour and a half each way, and by the time we got back on campus, around 2:30, I showered and went to bed. I slept like a baby.
Until the next post,
Eat well, then eat more
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