Partying with the Dems Abroad
Another first for me today: I took the first subway of the morning home, at around 4am. We got home in plenty of time to watch CNN call the election for Obama at 5am. I knew it was coming, but still I was surprised how emotional it made me to actually hear it.
I barely made it through McCain’s concession speech before I fell asleep. Still, this was the closest thing to an all-nighter I’ve pulled in quite a while.
It was a long evening. We arrived at the Democrats Anonymous Abroad party around 7pm to have dinner with friends. There was an, um, interesting program of live music on offer, but by around 10pm or so we were all itching to re-glue ourselves to a TV, even though we knew it would still be hours before any news came in. We moved upstairs to the bar area and found some prime seats in front of the big projection screen showing CNN. Thanks to my new toy (which I will tell you more about later) I was even able to get online and chat with friends and family back in the US, to find out what they were hearing on their end.
In the hours before the polls started closing, we entertained ourselves by watching a little Nailin Paylin and making up election night drinking games.
The crowd cheered each state as it was called for Obama, and for Democratic House and Senate members who were declared winners. It was especially satisfying to see Elizabeth Dole go down, after having seen this. Unfortunately Al Franken’s race was still too close to call.
Not everyone managed to stay up as long as we did.
