Concert closed, plans changed

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It was a nice try, but we failed to see the free concert in Lincoln Park. I guess we were too comfortable with our own time and departed from Alexandria after 1pm. We found out later that the concert audience has reached its maximum of 750.000 people and they refused to add more people to the Lincoln park area. There may have been even more people than that, but the numbers were not published.

So, as photos can tell, there were plenty of people, selling everything with Obama on it, even "Obama condoms". No, I'm not making this up. Too bad I don't have photos of that, but it was the worst kind of crowd.

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The positive energy in Washington is simply contagious. You have to be there to feel it, but you can also see glimpses of it on TV. The reporters from the scene are not making it all pretty - it is all pretty in some unreal way. Being from Serbia, I would compare it to the year 2000 when we felt the regime has been toppled and felt liberated from the bad pressure. So far, I didn't see any frown, any rude person in both Alexandria and Washington.

We took some time browsing around the edges of the park, looking at the improvised sales points of Obama merchandise, people, taking photos with Obama's cut out... Some genius characters charged two dollars for photos with Obama's cut out with the monument in the background - that was real entrepreneur spirit!

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After this project, we walked available routes to the nearest metro stops, taking us behind the White House, between museums and government buildings. It seemed that all the security forces were present in the area, but it wasn't threatening. I didn't feel that way coming from Balkans.

It can be a strange experience to see people who are doing their own thing ... one of the bicycle guys was wearing short pants and that really made me cringe. Wasn't he cold?

After that we visited bookstore, electronic store, clothing store. More deals, deals, deals... Books are very good when you have plenty of them and when they are cheap. Not for our standard, of course. Calendars are on the 50% sale, something that would not happen easily at this part of the year in my home country. Cd's and Dvd's are not cheap by our standards. Different electronic gadgets are really changing the perspective of us poor people, visiting from Balkans. Ah, all those things made to make your life easier... how I miss them ;-)

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We had coffee in the bookstore, browsed and purchased some, and then visited clothing store. More deals, and some shoes are really cheap. There were also shirts with matching ties for max 20 dollars, or 25 dollars and one really has to like such an idea.

We ate in the Mexican restaurant, where we were served by two Bulgarian siblings. Very pleasant young folks. Restaurant itself is very nice, food is rich and tasty, non-alcoholic beverages are cheap and are refilled each time you empty the glass. Unusual by our standards...

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In all the places I visited today I saw parts of that genius thinking that made America move ahead on the road. The entrepreneurial spirit is all around here, you just have to catch it. I saw many ideas my fellow Serbs can apply in their regular lives, if only they would like to do it. They don't seem to be interested in any change most of the time and I consider it sad. There are so many things we can improve... I saw coin organizer, something that is so easy to find here for ages, but never seen in Serbia. Correct me if I'm wrong.