Tuesday may be all about the presidential inauguration, but Monday was all about the tickets.

Mainers joined the millions of Americans making their way to the nation’s capital this weekend to see Barack Obama sworn in as president. The best seats for the ceremony, from the foot of the Capitol Building west past the Capitol Reflecting Pool, had already been spoken for. Members of Congress were allowed a certain number of tickets and had reserved them for their constituents. The tickets are free, but the sheer number of people interested in them made them scarce. And very, very valuable.

“The lines were very long – much longer than I’d expected,” said County Commissioner Elaine Makas of Lewiston. Hers were waiting for her in Rep. Mike Michaud’s office in the Capitol itself.

Getting there wasn’t easy.

“Everybody was just converging on the area to get their tickets, so it was kind of a zoo,” she said. A few hours spent in lines, and she got them. She’ll be sitting in section 11 in the yellow seating area, close to the stage.

Auburn Mayor John Jenkins will be sitting close by in the same section. He picked up his tickets later in the day, after spending the morning sightseeing and attending some of the functions, luncheons and gatherings until the afternoon.

“Then we heard from Sen. Collins that the lines were so long we thought we should probably get over there,” he said.

Alex and Rosemarie Freeman of Jay picked up their tickets for the silver section early Monday. That’s the farthest ticketed area from the stage, just west of the Capitol reflecting pool.

They’re staying with a sister, who lives in Maryland.

“So we plan on taking the Metro in and out,” Alex said. “There’s a lot of people and it’s much easier not having to park. But everyone is in a great mood. They’re very friendly, very excited.”

The Metro begins running at 4 a.m. Tuesday to get people to the mall in time for the ceremony.

“I don’t know what time we’ll leave,” he said. “I guess it depends on how early we manage to get up.”

Lewiston’s Ben Chin, an organizer for the Maine Peoples Alliance, caught a flight Monday morning out of the Portland Jetport. He arrived in D.C. on Monday afternoon and was on his way to meet Jenny Rottman, the alliance’s organizing manager.

“She has my tickets now, so I need to find her, and all of the buses and trains have been full,” Chin said. “But there’s just a cool vibe going on on. They’re busy, but everyone seems to be in a good mood.”

Livermore Falls High School teacher Michelle Bran said she wasn’t worried about tickets. She’s leading a tour of 14 of her 10th-grade students, and they plan to watch the ceremony from one of the 15 Jumbotron screens spread throughout the mall.

Without having to wait in line for their tickets, they spent Monday sightseeing.

“We started planning this last year, and we thought it would be a lot of fun just be in Washington for a presidential inauguration – no matter who won,” she said. “Regardless of who you wanted, this is very exciting. When you take the politics out of it, this is a big deal for everyone.”

Inaugural tickets

The area west of the Capitol is being divided up into six basic sections.

• The orange and yellow sections are closest to the stage where the president will be sworn in. The center sections of both have seating, while those on the edges are standing room.

• The blue and the purple sections are near the edge of the Capitol building’s apron. Both sections are standing-room only.

• The silver section is the largest ticketed area and begins at the western edge of the Capitol reflecting pool and continues west for the first block of the mall.

• The rest of the mall area is open for spectators without tickets. There will be security checkpoints throughout the area and Jumbotron television screens in place around the mall to show live footage of the ceremony.

To see a map of where Mainers are sitting during the inauguration ceremonies view this story online at: www.sunjournal.com