My colleague Manfred Klemann and I arrive in Washington DC by train from New York early in the morning; it is bitterly cold. We get out and let the huge crowd carry us towards the Capitol. The outlines of the American parliament are visible in the pale winter light, and the White House behind countless toilet cabins. So much history makes you dizzy. But the crowd is pressing in from everywhere, and the few security forces seem overwhelmed by the crowd of two million visitors. If to the American capital two weeks earlier, Obama's inauguration would have remained a TV event for us. I'm freezing.
A Zurich radio station calls – I'm in the middle of the europe rcs data crowd – and asks me live about my impressions a few hours before Obama's inauguration. I'm standing in the middle of thousands of people all pushing towards the mall and I say that it's freezing cold and mediocrely organized. The moderator seems a little disappointed after the interview. This can't be true, I hear from my smartphone, which I'm pressing tightly to my ear – he saw on CNN that the atmosphere was fantastic and that a Hawaiian was even playing the ukulele for Obama. I answer, gasping for air in the middle of the crowd pushing and pushing forward, that it's certainly too cold to play the ukulele. But maybe I'm wrong, I'm not a musician.