Inauguration Day in South America

Well, the day finally arrived, and it couldn't have come soon enough. Barack Obama is our PRESIDENT!!!!!! I woke up around 11 (that's early here) to get ready and go meet some friends at a very well-known American expat owned bar called Sugar. They had a big election night party that I missed so I wanted to make sure I was around for this. The festivities started at 3 pm BA time but just to make sure I could get in I tried to get there a little earlier. The bus that takes me to the nearest point of the bar picks me up right on my block but since it is almost clear across town, it is at least an hour-long ride. I ended up getting to the bar at about 2:30 to find, to my horror, that it was already filled beyond capacity. I just HAD to watch the speech(es), especially since election night, while fun and amazing and all, was missing that little something: other Americans. Fortunately I remembered hearing about another place, also owned by an American expat, that was broadcasting all the events. I hopped in a cab and screamed over to that bar, which is about 5 minutes from my house (I didn't opt to go there in the first place because the vibe just isn't the same) and managed to get there just in the nick of time. It's a good things cabs are faster than buses. It was amazing watching this part of history happen in a foreign country with so many Americans living here right now. The place was packed, standing room only. The speech to me was great, but as I've mentioned to a lot of people, what really made it seem real was watching footage of the Bushes literally "flying" away, as if now maybe they can just fly away from our collective conscience and let a new beginning arise.

I hope all of you had a great time wherever you were (especially Tristan and Andrew, those lucky SOB's). I love it down here, but Election Night and Inauguration Day are two days I really would have loved to have been in the States. Oh well, we got 8 more years!