My first full day in D.C. was a blast. My cousin and I went downtown for lunch and then made a stop by the Democratic National Convention for souvenirs.

When he told me we'd be going to the DNC, I expected large, lavish headquarters where the brightest minds in the Democratic party convene to make brilliant decisions. What I came to was a retail shrine to Barack Obama. Here was more of the frenzy I'd been anticipating.

The place just teemed with tourists like me, eager to bring home one of the hundreds of items bearing his likeness – Obama shirts, Obama mugs, Obama shot glasses, plate-sized Obama pins, Obama condoms (because, as they reminded me, "hope is not a form of protection"). I have never seen one person's face plastered on more memorabilia in my life. The man puts Che Guevara to shame.

I know he's always tried to downplay the hype – being hailed as the second coming – but if I were in his position and walked into that store, I'd believe I was the messiah. This may be the reason I'm not in his position. Probably one of many.

Afterwards, I went to visit a friend at George Washington University. She led me around the school for the requisite tour of academic buildings and then took me to the Kennedy Center, where the excitement I found lacking the day before was much more evident.

The center's two halls were thronged with visitors. Upstairs on the terrace, she explained to me that the activity in the city over the weekend had been wildly more intense than usual. People were out partying and having a ball every night since Friday, and the crowds were much larger. So there's the verdict from an actual D.C. resident. I may not have initially seen the increase in fervor, but I'm not from around here.

That night, my cousin and I dressed up in expensive suits and went to Black Tie & Boots, the Texas State Society Ball. We'd been fortunate enough to get free tickets through a friend in the State Department. Black Tie & Boots for the past two inaugurations has been the ball to go to, due to its status as Bush's home state inaugural ball. This year, its spotlight was diminished somewhat – there's nobody from Texas entering the White House. Still, we were thrilled for the chance to attend any inaugural ball, even if we're not the biggest country-western fans.

To the best of my knowledge, the Bushes did not make an appearance. That's one sight we didn't see. But that's not to say it wasn't worthwhile.

With an estimated attendence of 11,000, there were bound to be five-gallon hats, handle bar mustaches and free liquor to last well into the morning. The hotel in which it took place was absolutely massive. We arrived around 8 p.m. and hadn't been through every ballroom until at least 11 p.m. It took three hours to find all of the endless ballrooms, each with a different country, western, bluegrass, country-western, western-country, pop western, classic country or country rock band playing. And every one of them had a fiddle. Apparently, you gotta have one of those to play in Texas.

One particular highlight of the evening came when we were in the main stretch where food was set up. A man asked my cousin what one of the items on the line was. It looked to be some sort of miniature burrito, but neither of us were sure. He told the man he didn't know when an enthusiastic Texas woman blurted out in a piercing drawl, "Those some of them yummy oncheladdas!" Her accent made it unclear what she was actually saying, so he asked her to repeat herself. "Y'all aren't from arayound here are ya?" This posed a problem. My cousin was, in fact, from around here, meaning Washington, D.C. But evidently we had left D.C. and existed now in the microcosm of Texas inside a D.C. hotel. It seems you can take a woman out of Texas, but you can't take Texas out of her or her enchiladas. Another man approached us later and said he could tell we weren't from Texas because of the suits we were wearing. He himself was originally from Texas and appeared to be wearing a suit identical to ours. We're still trying to figure that one out.

The last event of the night was a performance by the Kilgore College Rangerettes! This is a bunch of young, blonde girls in Texas uniforms and cowboy hats doing a square dance/chorus line revue to favorite Texas anthems. The performance wasn't that technically impressive, but the crowd went wild for these Rangerettes. It must be every little girl's dream in Texas to grow up and dance dressed like a rodeo clown. It was a fun show, though, and I made sure to get a photo with two of them before I left. I am, as always, a hopeless tourist.