Category: Travel News

Early on the morning of the opening day, she put on her pandemic-era work clothes of gray sweatpants and a white shirt and ground the beans. Then, with her cup of coffee, she watched on her kitchen television the green and white helicopter take flight, evacuating the outgoing 45th President of the United States, Donald J. Trump from the White House.

In this kitchen, in a colonial brick house in Watertown, Massachusetts, tears came to the eyes of the woman, Karolyn Kurkjian-Jones. Tears of unfailing joy.

“It’s over, it’s over, it’s over,” said Ms. Kurkjian-Jones, a retired kindergarten teacher and janitor on pandemic leave at the Boston Park Plaza hotel later. “He left.”

Since the November election of Joseph R. Biden Jr. as 46th President, much attention has been paid to the conspiracy theories of Republicans who have backed Mr. Trump – especially those who, taking into account his combustible comments on a stolen election, invaded the Capitol in a wave of violence and vandalism on January 6.

But so many Americans, nearly 81.3 million of them, are like Ms. Kurkjian-Jones, people who voted for Mr. Biden and against Mr. Trump. And, on Wednesday, exactly two weeks after the Capitol attack, they celebrated with booze and pastries, with Zoom calls and “Amazing Grace” and tears of joy, a new day: a day when a nation pressed a reset button.

In Chicago, not far from a bakery that does great deals with grand opening-themed goodies – a Wonder Woman cake with the face of Vice President Kamala Harris, for example – Sarah Rassey, 40, has planned to attend the inauguration with his daughter, Madeleine, who also turned 5.

“I feel lighter,” Ms. Rassey said of Mr. Biden’s presidency. “I’m just grateful, relieved, happy – and, honestly, I’ve been crying tears of joy since last night.

In Texas, two sisters – both of Killeen’s special education teachers – drove over an hour to be outside the State Capitol in Austin in time to watch the opening on a cell phone. Norma Luna, 49, and Sylvia Luna, 43, were there in part to honor a third sister, Veronica, 56, who died of coronavirus on polling day.

“It’s a relief,” Norma Luna cried, watching the ceremony. “I didn’t think we could get here. We are proud to be Americans again. “

In Annandale, Va., Isra Chaker, 30, an advocate for refugees and asylum seekers at Oxfam America, felt liberated from the need to justify her ‘Americanity’ under the Trump administration – even though she was born and raised by Syrian immigrants in Boulder. , Colo.

“Today I know I belong here,” said Ms. Chaker, a Muslim woman who wears a hijab. “It was reaffirmed that we are all America and America is all of us.”

And at Calamari’s Squid Row restaurant in Erie, Pa., Vodka was the midday alcohol of choice among some women who call themselves the Drinking Girls. Mary Jo Campbell, 70, a retired college professor and Erie County Democratic Party official, was there along with friends Linda and Kathy, Alice, Cheryl, Karen, Amy and Emily – a group of compassionately assembled after Mr. Trump was elected in 2016.

They took off their masks to sip with glee. They applauded the moment Mr. Biden took power. They joined Garth Brooks to sing “Amazing Grace”. And then they sipped some more.

“Everyone was hooting and screaming,” said Ms. Campbell, 70, who wore Ruth Bader Ginsburg earrings to offset her blue “Pennsylvania for Biden” t-shirt.

This inauguration seemed to represent more than the routine transition of power from one political party to another. Mr. Trump’s breaking of standards, culminating in his refusal to concede an election he lost, and then his urging his supporters to march on Capitol Hill – leading to indictments and his second indictment – made the seismic moment: a shift from one distinct era to another, with the question of who we are as a republic suddenly open to debate.

In Berkeley, Calif., A software engineer named Martin Turon walked his labradoodle past Thousand Oaks Elementary School, where a guard had hung a congratulatory banner featuring an elder: Vice President Kamala Harris. Mr. Turon said he was very proud of Ms. Harris, but the overwhelming emotion he felt was relief, not glee.

“Do you really celebrate right after a big earthquake, when everything is broken?” Asked Mr. Turon. “When you pick up planks and rubble from the streets?”

Indeed, there have been small spasms of dissent from those who still do not accept Mr Biden as duly elected president, although reporters and members of the National Guard outnumber protesters in outside state capitals. But then it was a day when those who made recognizing the legitimacy of the election – that is, most of the country – was the moment.

The change actually started hours earlier, when Mr Trump and his wife, Melania, stepped out – his extra-long red tie, dark sunglasses – from the White House to board the Marine helicopter. One, to appear shortly after at Joint Base Andrews. to address a small crowd of loyalists. As Mr. Trump recited what he said were the accomplishments of his administration – a recitation punctuated by a vow to “come back in some form or another” – the panoply of American flags, waved by the morning breeze, seemed choppy .

Meanwhile, in a Massachusetts town 430 miles to the northeast, retired kindergarten teacher Ms. Kurkjian-Jones harbored a strong sense of good riddance.

After Mr. Trump was sworn in in 2017, Ms. Kurkjian-Jones began a four-year ritual of sending a colorful postcard to the White House every day except Sunday that said “Donald Trump frees your taxes” – this that he never did. She always signed the card with her name and the initials ABM – “for ‘America’s big mistake’,” she said.

Now, around noon, Mrs Kurkjian-Jones raised a glass of Moët champagne as a toast to her successor’s swearing-in. “A long time to come,” she said.

Many still believe in Mr. Trump’s baseless claim of widespread voter fraud. Aftershocks from the attack on the Capitol included a militarized lockdown for the dedication ceremonies. And the pandemic, which claimed the lives of more than 400,000 people in the United States, has required the continued attention of overworked healthcare workers across the country.

As the inauguration unfolded in Washington, struggles for life and death continued at the Martin Luther King Jr. Community Hospital in South Los Angeles. “I’m so tired of closing the black body bags,” said nurse Amanda Hamilton as the distant ceremony continued. “It’s exciting that we have a president who really cares about this and could do something about it.

Seconds later, the call for a “code blue”: a woman in her early fifties whose heart had slowed and oxygen had dropped. Ms. Hamilton rushed into the hallway to help insert a breathing tube.

Yet these realities could not take away for some the feeling of deep relief of the day.

Karin Wraley Barbee, 48, an English professor at Siena Heights University in Adrian, Mich., Said the day felt like a bookend in the aftermath of Mr Trump’s 2016 victory, when she was teaching in college but felt she could burst in tears anytime.

“I’m not naive enough to think that everything is fine; it is not, ”she said. “Everyone is very, very awake and invested in fixing what has been damaged.”

Mr. Barbee finished teaching a composition class at 11:50 a.m., then ran to her office, where she managed to catch the new president’s swearing-in on her computer. She could hear a few colleagues applauding at the time. And then she said, “Two of us did a little dance.”

Reporting was contributed by Ellen barry, Julie bosman, Sheri fink, Thomas fuller, Miriam Jordan and David Montgomery.