"Star-studded" is a bit of a cliché, but there's no better way to describe the Inaugural Opening Ceremony that just concluded here on the Mall. Since pictures are worth a thousand words--on a roll today, no?--we've decided the best way to bring you the action is with a few snapshots from the press area (which, after all, was a heckuva lot closer to the stage than where the hoi polloi were forced to stand). Without any further ado...

The view--reminiscent of another historic event--from just beneath the Lincoln Memorial stage: 

Beyoncé leading the crowd in "America the Beautiful"--with Bon Jovi, Garth Brooks, Sheryl Crow, Tom Hanks, Jamie Foxx, Tiger Woods and others as her rather high-wattage backdrop.

Oh, and then there was this guy:

Something tells me we'll be hearing more from him in the years to come...
 

This D.C. is a funny place. You may think you're just stepping into a CVS to pick up a pack of tissues, but actually you're heading on a collision course into the possible next prime minister of Israel.

I'm here in the capital during the run-up to the inauguration to take in a little bit of history. As you might imagine, taking in history in the middle of January can be a chilly undertaking. Yesterday afternoon, after strolling a bit in the quiet, somewhat suburban part of town where we're staying, my friend and I take a quick break from the great outdoors to grab some tissues in CVS. This, however, is no ordinary trip to CVS. Making the turn down one of the aisles, I catch sight of a squad of black-clad men with matching red lapel pins. Amongst them is a blond woman mumbling in a language that sounds vaguely like Hebrew. Hmmm, I think. She looks like...nah, no way...

Way. As I turn the corner at the end of the aisle, I slam into the mumbling Tzipi Livni, foreign minister of Israel, who, I later learn, is in town finalizing an agreement with Condoleezza Rice about Hamas' underground smuggling routes into Gaza. Oof! Sorry, I say. Mumble, mumble, she replies, looking peeved. I glance at the kafiya wrapped around my friend's neck, then at the bulky gentlemen making up Livni's Secret Service detail. Uh-oh. Fortunately for us all, the foreign minister has bigger fish to fry than two sniffling twenty-somethings, and she continues on her way to whatever toothpaste or shampoo she came to get.

I didn't have a chance to ask her, but it's possible that she is prepping for tonight's Foreign Diplomats Inaugural Ball, hosted by the Ethiopian embassy at the James Monroe Mansion. (I also put in an inquiry with the Israeli embassy, and will update if they get back to me). I hope not, though. Although Israel may have unilaterally declared its ceasefire just in time for the inaugural festivities (Newsweek's Rod Nordland has a nice bit of reporting from Gaza city, here), this is one woman with some seriously big fish to focus on frying right now.

In context, it's not so bad. Earlier this morning in Washington, the weather forecasters gave an uplifting number: 35. Uplifting only in comparison to the low teens and negative wind chill temperatures that have frozen the city (and much of the country) for the past week. At one point, planning officials were talking about how to scale down the inaugural events and lowering crowd estimates, thinking that people might come to the wise realization that it still counts as witnessing history if you watch it on TV, ideally sitting next to a fire. Barack Obama, one person told me, would want me to be warm.

But no! Keep the crowd estimates where they were. 35, with a good chance of temperatures approaching even (gasp!) 40 by Tuesday, means that the inaugural events won't just be for the thick skinned and weatherized. Nope, the presidential inaugural committee, with the direction of Obama himself, promised that this would be the people's inauguration, and apparently they meant it.

Of course, let's not forget those visitors who see 35 as a temperature approaching that in your freezer, and thus humanly unnatural (we're looking at you, West Coasters).