The security line in which I waited for 15 minutes was urgently evacuated by a group of Polizei bearing machine guns, and I had to follow my line-colleauges through a beer garden and a duty-free shop to find another checkpoint with another 15-minute security line.
If past bipartisan practice is any guide, one or more extraordinary individual in uniform will grace the First Lady's box in the House gallery, perhaps bearing the scars of terrible wounds suffered in the lineof duty.
Patrick's Day tradition at his pub: allowing any patron bearing an Irish passport to jump the line, inevitably to a chorus of catcalls from scores of Canadians shivering in line outside.