With the intention of hearing and seeing Mr Obama, I got up at 2 AM on Sunday. I could've stayed in bed longer, but after Thursday's experience I wanted to give myself enough time to put on my contact lenses. (On Thursday, it took me AN HOUR and I was late for school, I excused myself blaming in on 'trouble with unconditional reflexes'....). This time, I was faster, but still had to wait for my 4:02 tram from Narodni divadlo (I enjoyed the romantic night walk from Podolska vodarna).
I was at the Loretanska entrance at 4:45 AM. There already were about 30 people waiting. I got lucky a little after 5 AM ("nothing good ever happens after 2 AM" -hahaha): Katie, Laura, David and Ben joined me and made my waiting a lot more fun. I actually enjoyed it (not that it's my #1 Sunday morning activity, but it was not what you imagine under 'standing in a crowd for 2.5 hours to move to another crowd for another 3 hours').
The Czech Police made an excellent job (as always) when managing the crowd: after pressing and pushing us here and there as needed to take police cordons in or drive cars in and out, the Anti-Conflict Team took over. The guy who seemed to be in charge stood in front of us (hundreds of people) saying he wants us to step back...
Somewhat before 7 (the time when the crowds were supposed to be let in), some people started demanding being let in first, because they had fliers that said "you are invited". The people who had them were really let in earlier and into a separated section.
Then, when it was finally our turn, we walked in and waited some more. Our main diversion were snipers checking the crowd from roofs and windows around us (dubbed 'ninjas' by a guy standing next to us).
We watched Mr Obama, accompanied by - amongst others - Mr Klaus, enter the Castle on big screens and after they had coffee, he came and gave his speech. Which I liked, but I am too lazy to write about it; I am also sure you watched or read it yourself ;).
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