The bus rolls into Chinatown and I see a familiar face in the waiting crowd. Sam and I embrace in a big ol’ hug. It’s only been two months since he pulled a 44-hour guest appearance in Stockholm after a trip to Finland, but it feels like yesterday…and forever. Sam’s mom is Finish and we’ve haggled over international ice hockey bouts for years. We met through a circle of journalists, working for different papers in North Carolina five years ago and immediately became best friends, even though we worked for competing newspapers. Sam recently got a nice new job as a military journalist in Washington D.C.

Sam grabs my bag (oh, I love being back in America and among men with manners!) and we plow through the crowds toward the metro station.

The streets are completely crazy with people hawking Obama T-shirts, flags and all sorts of memorabilia. It feels like New Years Eve or something with confetti, balloons and cars in grid-lock. People are singing, dancing, filming, it’s just crazy. One suit-clad distinguished dude hangs out of a limo taking pictures of us, the crowd at a street corner.

“You’re not famous!” Sam shouts and the distinguished dude looks surprised and locks us into a shot. The dude was probably some big shot foreign politician.

The lines in the metro station are horrific and we have to wait forever to get on a train.
But it doesn’t matter. Everyone is happy. The mood is exhilarating.

We arrive at Sam’s place, which he shares with three other guys, on walking distance from The White House, The Capitol and The National Mall, where all inauguration hallaballoo will go down.

As we walk through the door of the road house, more than 100 years old, at 1621 Hobart Street, we are greeted by a motley crew of people, all of whom will be spending these historical days in this super cool pad.

Sam, Will, Will’s mom Mary, Jordan, Peter and myself. “Love” or Mr. Loveless, is missing in action and won’t show up until late, late. We think he’s a party pooper but in reality, the poor boy is stressed to the bone as his job on the Obama Transition Team consists of data and database information and he’s responsible for having all this switched from President No. 43 and President No. 44.

Will works in Legislative Affairs, on the Obama Transition Team, and is pretty stressed too with all the work he has to finish before lunchtime Tuesday, when Obama officially will be the president. Jordan, Will’s friend and a roommate to be, is also working on the Obama Transition Team, but on the personnel side. Peter, Jordan’s friend is a law school student from NYC. Mary, the mom, is a super cool lady, who loves life, owns a knitting shop in Virginia sweeps around the moving-disaster-of-a-two-story-apartment saying that she loves everyone and everything. She’s a bundle of fun and the most common words Will utters to her, though affectionately, is “Mom, you’re killing me!”

We don’t know it yet, but before Sunday night is at end, we will be family and Mary will be mom to all of us.

Shortly after my arrival, a case of Heineken, and an introduction-frenzy later, we head for the bars. Mom and Will also have tickets to the Inauguration. Now the Girl with a ticket to the Obama Inauguration has familiar company.