I've already written a lot about Tuesday during the day, so I won't rehash that. Tuesday Night I met up again with Sara for the Youth Ball. Sara and I got all decked out for this ball - me in a tux, and her in a beautiful ball gown. We got there pretty early. The doors opened at 8 and we were there before 7. We found some friends in line and waited with them for the doors to open. It was bitter cold outside, and since Sara didn't have a full length coat, her legs (and toes) were frozen by the time we got in. Thankfully I had remembered to wear my new topcoat, so I was generally okay, although it was really cold, and I would have liked to have been wearing my warmer hat. At the ball the next day, some of our friends showed up with sweatpants on under their dresses and boots that they changed out of at coat check - this was a pretty brilliant idea and I'd recommend it to any lady going to formal events in the dead of winter when they're going to be forced to wait outside.
The Youth Ball rocked. I hear that some people had trouble getting into the main ballroom, but Sara and I got in fine. They served a decent spread of food before the ball started so we weren't hungry all night. The ballroom was very nicely set up with two stages and a place for Obama to appear. They started out the entertainment with Kid Rock followed by Kanye West, then Obama made a brief appearance and speech followed by Fallout Boy. MTV broadcast live from the ball. After the main entertainment was over, we went into the secondary ballroom and danced to DJs until almost 2 AM.
I got home late after that and I didn't set an alarm clock. I was really wiped out and I ended up waking up at 2:30 in the afternoon. Sara had sent me a couple "are you alive" text messages. I got up, got dressed and headed straight to the Staff Ball. It started earlier and was the most well organized event that put on by the Inaugural Committee that I attended the entire time. We got through the line really quickly even though it was over a block long. They had lots of metal detectors which sped up the process. They also had, surprise!, volunteers directing the line. The ball was held in a huge arena size building called the DC Armory. The event was open bar, and they had a good selection of food from all around the world on the buffet tables. The only hitch there was that the blue cupcake frosting turned your lips blue too.
The best part of the Staff Ball was the speeches given by Biden and Obama. They both gave pretty long speeches that thanked the staff for all their hard work. Pluffe also spoke as well as a campaign surrogate who made fun of all the times staffers almost killed him. This was topped off by a performance by Arcade Fire and Jay-Z. The only bummer about the Staff Ball was that it ended so early. I still think it was my favorite event of the whole trip. I'm glad Sara was able to take me and not some "deserving volunteer".
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