Yearly Archives: 2009

Inauguration!

This entry was posted in General Pictures on by .

I realized that I never posted about the Inuaguration of President Barack Obama (44). I went downtown for the event which was amazing that so many people had gathered, I think the crowd estimates were ~1.5 million people. Wow.

It was funny being in the city when everyone was a tourist and had no idea where anything was, I helped people on several occasions, and there were some funny moments.  (It’s by Ballston… Response: Boston? No, were in DC?)

Leaving DC after the inauguration was over felt oddly similar to an apocalyptic film, like Cloverfield or something.  There were military humvees and guards every few blocks, the steets were closed to traffic, and the metro stations were completely swamped (see pic). We ended up leaving by walking (!!) across the Memorial bridge.

It was quite an experience and amazing seeing DC in a way like never before. That everything seemed to go so relatively smoothly was incredible, regardless of ones political views, going to the inauguration was an experience in itself, things with this sheer number of people don’t happen that often.

Airline Planning

This entry was posted in General on by .

So I’m going to Australia very soon and when I was looking at booking airline flights, there was quite an anomally..

My plan involves 3 flights. From DC to San Fransisco to visit for a few days, from San Fransisco to Australia a few days later and then several months later back from Australia. Since I wasn’t sure exactly of my desired return date I decided to see how much it would cost if I just booked my flights out, and not back. As it turns out, it costs more to fly just out then the whole trip in one!

$1943 to fly from DC to SFO and SFO to Melbourne, Australia.

or $1479 to fly from DC to SFO and SFO to Melbourne, Australia AND Melbourne, Australia to DC. The flights that overlap are the exact same flights, not worse times or anything.

It’s hard to believe it would save me nearly $500 to buy an extra ticket and throw it away. I don’t understand the airline industry, but it doesn’t come much of a surprise that the industry has been struggling in recent years.

*These flights were through United.