3:00 PM

After giving up hope on making our way to the parade route, we’re walking with everyone else along the only exit out of the Mall – down 6th Avenue. We did manage to see the Presidential helicopter flying to the Capitol building over our heads, and we also saw some of the parked parade floats, namely floats for Obama and Biden’s home states of Illinois and Delaware.

Exiting with everyone from the Mall seems like the running of the bulls (but walking). People keep bumping into each other, jostling and pushing for position. The scene is a distant cry from the organization in the morning. Everyone is confused about which way to go, and even some of the volunteers and officers don’t know. We asked a couple of volunteers and U.S. Army soldiers where we could find food and get back to the RFK shuttle stop, and none seemed to know. We eventually found an officer who was able to point us to the shuttle stop. However, by the time we got to the stop and saw the crowd of thousands waiting, we needed to use a restroom, and fittingly, there were no restrooms around. Plus, we just realized, we hadn’t eaten anything but a hot dog all day and were starving.

All the buildings along the street were closed, and there were no porta-johns. That meant thousands of people leaving the Mall – hungry and looking for places to relieve themselves – with nowhere to go. We weren’t the only ones desperately looking for public restrooms and a restaurant either. Eventually, we found a small Subway restaurant, where Mai waited 45 minutes to use the bathroom and I waited 45 minutes to buy two sandwiches. It was the most delicious Subway meal I’ve ever had. And what’s more, we got to enjoy inside a warm building. It didn’t matter that we had to eat on the floor; we were just happy to be out of the cold.