Jennifer Hale’s Monday blog from D.C.

Let the craziness begin!
I thought D.C. was filling up this weekend—well it is nothing like today!
Metro police closed down the metro at Union Station today as I was trying to get on to ride to our Media General Bureau and feed in my 10 p.m. newscast material.
They said the crowd had reached a dangerous level, and they needed to clear the system out.
It was a little intimidating, honestly. The crowd was so thick, you couldn’t move. You had to go the direction they were going in…kind of like Bourbon Street during Mardi Gras.
I can’t imagine what tomorrow will be like.
The street vendors are over the top. You can buy ANYTHING with Obama’s face on it: towels, bags, hats, purses, post cards, ear muffs, scarves, dishes, key chains. One man tried to sell me the box his Obama paperweight came in…telling me it had Obama’s picture on it so it would be worth big money one day soon.
Everyone seems to be having fun, but the polite atmosphere is certainly diminishing as the crowds get thicker.
Officers are about to shot down this whole area to vehicles, so we’ll all be walking everywhere from now on.
Last night I attended a reception honoring Alabama’s elected officials. Quite a big who’s who list: Don Siegelman, Jim Folsom,  Roger Bedford, Artur Davis, Sheila Smoot, Carole Smitherman.
Oh - and perhaps the most interesting people-watching event yet—The 2009 Latino Inaugural Ball!
I don’t know if I’ve ever seen so many beautiful people! And the dresses!
Saturday night I felt so overdressed at the Hip Hop Caucus Party—last night I felt so plain in my ordinary little silk black dress. I needed my Mardi Gras gowns!
The ball was at Union Station - which is just beautiful, especially in the candlelight.
A big list of celebs attended. We saw: Rosie Perez, J Lo, Marc Anthony, Rosario Dawson, Wilmer Valderrama and a girl from Scrubs whose name I can’t recall. 
Tonight we are off to a ball that Maya Angelou is hosting honoring the Tuskegee Airmen, as well as the Georgia Ball, the Arkansas Ball and another Hip Hop Caucus Ball.
I took some pictures from that ball:

It is interesting how diverse the events are, and I don’t just mean racially.
You’ve got so many proper, intellectual movers and shakers dressed in elegant black tie. Then a block away, you’ve got a raging party with no one over 23 throwing a “ball” of their own dressed in jeans, t shirts and halter tops. There is an incredible number of young people here.
One thought I am struck with over and over this weekend: Change is certainly here. Now, to some extent, it is up to each one of us how we choose to embrace it and how we - through our own actions - help define it.
I’m excited about tomorrow—- and curious to see how it will all unfold.
Thankfully we have tickets, as well as the possibility of a balcony at a lobbying firm overlooking the ceremony. We didn’t do our Secret Service background check in time, so we’ll have to see if we can get up there tomorrow.
The crunch for tickets is crazy.
Last night, some folks with Alabama’s Democratic Party told me they only received 8 tickets for their entire delegation. They thought they were receiving between 50 and 60. They still weren’t sure how they were going to decide who the lucky 8 get to be!