Pedicab to the Presidency

Katelyn, Michael and I hopped on the Metro toward the Washington Convention Center to pick up our press credentials and were greeted with an understandably intense security process.

Check one: Show your ID, name your newspaper. 

Check two (several feet later): Show your ID, name your newspaper. 

And check three…well, you get the idea. 

We made our way into the epicenter of the whole operation to find thousands (read: thousands) of folders filled with press passes, just like ours, filed and boxed in the most organized way possible. I’ve never seen such a large-scale operation carried out in such a mechanically organized manner. 

But, then again, I’ve never been a part of such a large-scale operation. Not by a long shot.
With our press passes in hand, we re-hopped the Metro and jetted to Chinatown with authentic (or as authentic Chinese food as one can get in an American city) cuisine on our mind. Keeping in mind the tips of a certain Pitt News-er, we knew what to look for: ducks in the window, largely Asian patronage, chop sticks on the table and Dim Sum on the menu.And luckily, we found our joint only a few blocks away: Full Kee. The food was incredible, but the company was even better.

Sitting next to us was a motley crew of bikers — that much we could tell from the rolled up pant legs and Under Armor — but what we didn’t know was that these fellows had

 traveled from Denver, Colo., to work for the weekend …

 as veritable rickshaw (they prefer "pedicab")  drivers.
Adam De La Pena, one of the drivers, only started familiarizing himself with the city four days ago.
“You can study maps, but until you get out and know where the hills are at, if it’s a steep grate so you can say, ‘Oh, I’m not going there,’ then we don’t really know,” he said between bites of cooked duck, with chop sticks in one hand and a map in the other.

“So we’ve been biking around to figure it out.”

De La Pena and his crew worked at the Democratic National Convention in their hometown last fall, where they often worked up to 15 hours a day.

For the inauguration, De La Pena is looking forward to even higher traffic around a city he’s just beginning to understand. But he’s not too worried.

“This is not a job. It’s tiring, but it’s totally an adventure,” he said.

-Justin Jacobs

-Photo Credit: Michael Heater