The Pope visits DC! Take One...

What a rush! The Pope was here! In DC!... and so was I!

I thought myself pretty lucky when I was able to get tickets to see Queen Elizabeth on the White House lawn last spring. Hey, it's not like you can see something like that if you live in any other U.S. city. DC definitely has its advantages.

But then there's this. The Pope. First of all, how lucky are we that he made a trip to the US, let alone to the city that I'm living in. Second, how much of a blessing is it that I was able to see not only his WH lawn appearance but also his Mass at Nationals Ballpark!?!

I was able to get tickets for the WH lawn visit thought my work. As a political appointee, the White House Liaison at the State Department was able to distribute these tickets to me (and my fellow appointees) while most other employees don't get this option. There were a limited number of tickets available to State appointees but I sent in an email request ASAP and locked one up for me.

I had to go pick the ticket up, near the White House, a couple days before the event (which took about an hour in itself!) and then the event was actually on Wednesday morning (thank goodness my office let me get out of work that morning). The ticket I has only allowed me a 30-min window to get into the event, between 7:30AM-8:00AM (other peoples tickets had different times - they stagger the arrival time to make the lines shorter). I was one of 12,000 attendees at this event, the largest ever on the WH lawn, and almost double the attendance for the Queen last year.

Thank goodness the weather was nice out. I got a nice sunburn on the right side of my face as the sun rose during the 6 hours that I stood on the lawn (which is fine, because it evened out the burn I got on the left side of my face in Venice Beach, CA, the week before!). Needless to say I got to know my fellow attendees pretty well, standing together for that long. I met a nice young lady from Georgia who flew up just for this event and flew back down afterwards - we spent most of the morning talking about baseball and where I should go if I wanted to visit the "real" South.

The Pope showed up around 11:30 and made a wonderful entrance, with a 21-gun salute from Army, and with President Bush in stride. Unfortunately I didn't have the best view, as I was just a few rows back from the lights/camera platform, but I did get some good peaks. One of the best moments was when the crowd spontaneously burst into singing "Happy Birthday" for the Pope, since it was his 81st birthday. I thought it might be more prudent to sing "Zum Geburtstag", the German derivative, being that he's from Germany, but I doubt the rest of the crowd studied in Germany and knew the words.

The President gave a very nice speech, introducing Pope Benedict XVI, but it was the Pope who stole the show. I was surprised at how well he spoke English and greatly enjoyed his sweet Bavarian accent. He was clear and concise and delivered a powerful message of hope and unity. I'm very proud to say the he's my Pope! After he spoke they concluded the ceremony and the Pope and the President went inside the White House to have a Holy pow-wow.

It took a good 30 minutes from there just to get off the WH lawn and onto the street. Unfortunately I mis-judged the situation and came out north of the WH, but my work was a good 7 blocks south. The crucial detail is that I had to cross Pennsylvania Ave. to get south, and there was NO way that was happening, since it was blocked off for miles, keeping the road clear for the Popemobile to cruise down soon. It was fun walking through the massive crowds, seeing everyone celebrating (and some protesting, looking rather foolish). Finally I had to break down and go out of my way to get to a Metro station so that I could take the train beneath the crowd and got to work around 1:00PM. What a day!

---

---