On Saturday, over 300,000 people turned up to the National Mall in Washington, D.C. for Global Citizen’s Earth Day Festival.
I took the pickle into DC on Friday and spent the afternoon exploring Smithsonian museums I hadn’t yet had an opportunity to see. Then, I went to George Washington University and stayed the night with a friend. I’ve kept intending to visit him, but my schedule has kept interfering, so it was great to catch up and I had a lot of fun meeting his friends, who were all really sweet and friendly. I wish I had more weekends left to go back and visit again!
I got up at 8:30 the next morning and took the metro down to the Mall and reunited with a few McDaniel friends who were also attending. It was a gorgeous day and I had a good book to read while we waited for the event to start.
This is the only photo I have, taken of the line to get in behind me around 9:30AM–I was too busy living in the moment to be preoccupied with my cell phone!
As the event was in support of Earth Day on Wednesday, the speakers mainly talked about climate change, poverty, and gender inequality. There were so many high-profile speakers there that I was quite overwhelmed. When they announced that Ban Ki-moon, the secretary general of the United Nations was speaking, I completely freaked out. As an international studies major, there couldn’t have possibly be anything cooler. (Chris Martin, who does a lot of global work in addition to fronting Coldplay, spoke after him though which came close!)
Train played in the middle of the day. They’re a bit out of my normal music taste, but I have a soft spot for them as they’re from San Francisco, too. I was surprisingly impressed by Usher, who I’d never really listened to but who turned out to be an amazing performer. A lot of people came for Fall Out Boy. Mary J. Blige also put on a good show, and though I’d never heard of My Morning Jacket, I enjoyed the music they played. The final act, however, was the one I had come for: No Doubt. I’ve loved No Doubt since I was about ten years old and first started listening to rock, so it was a total treat to see them playing live.
My toe, which I broke almost four weeks ago, isn’t better yet. I had a blister on my blister from walking around on Friday so I couldn’t wear the special shoe I have for it–there was physically too much pain for me to bear with it rubbing against the blisters–so I walked around in bare feet all day. By the end, my feet had never hurt so much in my life, not even after I’d hiked forty miles in Yellowstone one night. I can’t yet put weight on my dumb baby toe without it aching, so my other foot bore the grunt. I also missed Spring Fling at McDaniel, which is probably the most fun and lively day on campus in the year. However, it was all completely worth it. Ban Ki-Moon! No Doubt! I’m still in shock.
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