It has been, quite metaphorically, a trip. I feel so utterly privileged to be healthy and wealthy (and wise ) enough to have been able to make it. I truly fell in love with DC on this visit, and can’t recommend it highly enough as a destination. Even when there isn’t the inauguration of America’s first African-American President going on.

This will be my last post – sob! – for England For Obama. As MK and I agree, the main purpose of this blog was to try to help build momentum for Barack Obama, in order to get him elected. So now that that’s happened… *Drums fingers*.

I only started blogging for this site in August last year, and can’t thank MK enough for setting it up and giving me a medium to combine two passions (writing and interest in BHO. Not knitting and Strictly Come Dancing, or anything).

MK will be writing a post to round all this off, but in the meantime, from me: thank you so much for reading, commenting and/or lurking, and I hope you’ve enjoyed all that we’ve written, or at least found it informative.

In the meantime, I instruct you all to:

- Read the Huffington Post

- Watch The Daily Show

- Watch The Colbert Report

- Watch Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow online on MSNBC

- And keep the faith for the next four years. While also holding the Obama administration accountable.

I’ll leave you with one of my favourite photos from Washington. From the Richard Avedon exhibition I went to today, my final day in DC:

Thank you all for reading the blog. It’s been a blast.

I’ll see you in four years’ time…

Here’s the original poster in the National Portrait Gallery, btw. I went to see it on Thursday:

Don’t you just love how it’s in ‘New Arrivals’?

*Yes, I sat – albeit for 10 seconds – on the seat that Barack sat on. It’s the new ‘Meg Ryan’s seat at Katz’s Deli’.

**Update** More photos from today – of the Lincoln Memorial, Mall and Washington Monument – just added.

Because we experienced the inauguration inside – it was, of course freezing outside and you had to get a pitch very early in the morning – and because I had to dash back to file my copy for Orange (as I was off to a ball that night and so unable to write it later), I wasn’t in the thick of the big crowd and parade.

BUT: being at the Willard was a real treat – it’s such a beautiful and historic hotel – and the place bustling with people and draped with flags. The inauguration being screened in several dining rooms, including the Grand Ballroom, where we watched it:

I wasn’t the only one to cry during his speech.

The ball was, erm, interesting in my foreign eyes – my American friends backing up my suspicion that it was exactly like a prom, only everyone was older. An ’80s school disco in tuxes, if you will. And while the venue was lovely (it was held at the Historical Society of Washington), I could have absolutely taken or left it, as an event. Still, I can tick that box now, eh? Inaugural ball cherry popped.

We did get chatting to a couple of very nice, young Washington peeps at the ball – including pollster K, who reminded us all so much of CJ Cregg that she was swiftly dubbed ‘Flamingo’ for the evening. When the ball finished, Flamingo took us onto a bar in Chinatown that she knew – where we proceeded to continue gassing and drinking more V/G&Ts in our posh frocks/tuxedos, and where someone asked me: “Who made your dress?!” To which there was only one answer: an exclusive designer called Coast.

It’s 8am as I type this, and the weather outside is partly cloudy, partly sunny… and undoubtedly cooold.

I am off to watch the inauguration ceremony and parade from The Willard Hotel, right next to the White House, where the New York State Society is throwing a brunch for 1,500 people. 1,500! That’s a lot of bucks fizz and scrambled eggs.

After that, I’ll be dashing back home to write another piece for Orange News, getting showered and jumping into my Kate Winslet Golden Globes 2009 Lookey-Likey Finery, and heading out to the Arizona State Society Ball. Well, when in Rome… you’ve got to put on a frock, drink champagne, dance the night away and try not to shout at John McCain, haven’t you?

Anyway. So: if you don’t hear from me until that little lot’s over, don’t worry, I haven’t been trampled in the crowds or arrested for getting leery at a police horse. MK will be live-blogging here during the ceremony – Barack is sworn in at 12 noon local time/5pm UK time – and don’t forget, you can watch the proceedings on British television here and via the official live stream here.

And if you’re off to a party tonight too, have a wonderful time.

This is an amazing day. We’re about to see history in the making – and, I don’t think it’s any exaggeration to say, the start of a new America. Enjoy, everyone.

One of the reasons I went on the subway this evening (look, I’ve stopped calling it the tube!) was to pick up this:

Yes, I shall go to the ball. Thank you, Craigslist.

From the moment I exited the Metro station and followed the crowds to the Lincoln Memorial, it felt like I was going to a rock festival. Which, erm, of course, I was. And yet not. Because the event, of course – or at least: the reason for it – was much bigger than that.

I also felt like I was going to a rock festival because there were stalls and hawkers selling every kind of memorabilia en route, including quickly rustled-up commemorative concert T-shirts.

By the time I arrived (having seen the Obama motorcade swoosh past at one point), the place was clearly rammed, with unbelievable queues – and it was clear that it would be impossible to get into the main area by the Lincoln Memorial and the Reflecting Pool.

So I headed up to the Washington Monument instead (cue Chris Matthews encounter), where crowds were gathering and where the concert was being beamed onto three Jumbotron screens:

And it turned out to be the perfect location. In the thick of it, and yet not. In fact, because we were far away, and yet not so far away, the sound was a little odd, because you could hear both the music/speeches coming through the speakers, and the original, live sound preceding it, quietly, just a few seconds before.

That’s Bruce on the screens above, btw. Any concert which kicks off with Bruce is alright by me. In fact, I thought it was brilliantly done – the mixture of music and speeches, and footage from previous inaugurations and Presidential moments. No gassing from any of the acts, just one song and bam, they were off. Unless they were Garth Brooks, of course, who inexplicably got more songs than, say Stevie Wonder (and who knew that Shout was a hit in America, too? Not I). The people I was most excited about seeing were Bruce, Stevie, James Taylor, Herbie Hancock and U2 – and they didn’t disappoint. In fact, no one disappointed. Except for Challenger the American eagle, who flapped around a bit, causing the crowd to get very excited because we clearly thought he was going to be released, like a dove. In fact, that would have been great: screw releasing hundreds of doves – the Presidential Inauguration Committee should have organised the releasing of hundreds of bald eagles. Sort it out next time, America!

One nice thing about ending up going to the concert alone was that I struck up conversations with random strangers. Including a woman who was taking photos for a magazine, and told me that Britney Spears was around here somewhere, in disguise; a lady and her daughter from Joe Biden country, Delaware; and a local guy whose brother was in the front row of the concert because his wife is a big Obama fundraiser, and he’s also friends with Bruce. As you are.

The crowd was peaceful and happy and diverse. In fact, as I wrote in my Orange piece, I can’t imagine any rock festival which actually could attract such a diverse crowd, made up as it was of young and old, black and white:

Aww.

When it was over, I wandered down to the Mall and towards the Capitol. Dusk was falling and the light was beautiful – and look, even the state of the grass on the Mall had that post-rock festival feel to it:

One reason I say that DC feels crowded and yet empty, is that it is, as anybody who’s been there knows, a city of wide boulevards and big buildings. In the main political/administrative part, anyway. It feels grandious, and spacious – ironically, almost Russian-like, in fact – and as a result, as I wandered up towards the Capitol, I had all the space in the world. Despite having just attended a concert around the corner with 400,000 other people.

A frozen Reflection Pond greeted me, I took some photos of the Capitol’s dome in the setting sun, and headed home. Or rather: to K’s place, the best little B&B in Washington.

(More pictures here.)

The sentence which really sums up how it feels over here is: “It’s as if America is at once unable to believe its luck, and yet also taking this all completely in its stride.” Everyone and everything feels so positive, so elated, really rather surreal and dream-like, and yet also very real. And while I realise it may seem hard to marry up ’surreal’ and ‘real’, that’s exactly the atmosphere in America – well, certainly in Washington – right now.