I'd heard there was going to be a march in San Jose, so I decided to show up. My first clue that it was very big was at the Caltrain station, where I found myself waiting with a LOT MORE people than usual for the train. Once we got to San Jose, the premarch from the Caltrain station to City Hall was a lot bigger than most of the marches I've participated in before.

        

It was cool. We just filled the sidewalk and kept moving forward together. All around me I could hear the happy sounds of people sharing the experience.

  

Every time we passed another bus or train it was emptying a full load of riders onto the sidewalk. With a crowd that big, taking transit was a smart way to get there.

        

     

By this time it was difficult to move around without jostling people. We were still too far from City Hall plaza to hear whatever instruction the organizers were giving marchers. No problem, there were plenty of people around us to chat with and lots of signs to take pictures of. A good time was being had by most of us.

        

     

     

           

           

     

     

The woman with the morning's front page on her back wanted to make sure you noticed that she had scratched out the "UN" in the headline.

        

  

By this time we'd turned the corner onto 4th St. Still moving at a very slow pace, but moving forward together again.

        

        

  

There were two helicopters hovering above us. Probably they were reporting that there were lots of us in the street. Duh!

        

        

     

  

     

           

     

        

        

        

        

        

        

     

At this point we'd reached the marches end. The crowd was thinning quickly, leaving behind just the people that had something to say or weren't in a hurry to move on for whatever reason.

        

        

        

  

There were speakers like California Assembly member Ash Kalra who's the first Indian-American in the Assembly. There were lots of people listening, but I wasn't really one of them. Maybe I was just tired. Sorry about that.