Friday, November 07, 2008

Finalmente!

Obama won! For the first time I feel actually happy to be in the US also from a political point of view. Of course, the contrary would have been crazy - however, what happened is not just relieving: it's actually an event of historical proportions! And so many people felt the same way on Tuesday: for the first time I saw Americans flooding the streets! I thought it would never happen. :) Melynda and I left home after Obama's speech and went down Sproul Plaza (the most famous plaza on campus, where a lot of the parades took place in the Sixties). It was full of students, cheering and screaming! Then, at some point, a spontaneous march started going down Telegraph. I had never thought to see something like this.
I don't know how many we were, but it was a lot! The traffic was all blocked, and people who were stuck in the cars just decided to roll down their windows and unite their voices to ours. :)
We walked a few blocks and then went around and back on campus, to the Campanile, the symbol of the University, where we celebrated. Then a smaller group of people decided to go to the Chancellor's house (he lives on Campus). The students marched towards his house and asked for a speech! I'm not exactly sure why they decided to do that. I guess it was just the excitement of the moment, and the desire to declare this joy 'formally'. The Chancellor came out of his house after a few minutes (as I found out later, he was actually sleeping :) ). He said a few words of congratulations and happiness, and then everybody left.

It was a remarkable experience. Hopefully people will remain this engaged for a while. I am looking forward to see how the politics of this country will change.

To finish this post, I'll put a few more funny pictures: these are Melynda and I walking at the march on Telegraph (Melynda took the picture :) ).
And here it's me with Obama!
We're at 'Au Coquelet', one of the few places serving food after 11 pm in Berkeley. Melynda and I went there after the Chancellor's speech, and that's where we met him. :)

5 comments:

Rosa's Yummy Yums said...

Great! What a party!

Cheers,

Rosa

... said...

Waw! Obama is tall and tanned isn't he? HAHAHAHAHAHAHA

chemcookit said...

Rosa - yes, it was great!

Albert - AAAAARRRGGHHHH - I swear I DID NOT VOTE FOR BERLUSCONI ever and will never ever ever do so!!!!!!!!!!!!!! He's just an embarrassment...

Betty Carlson said...

Your president has made quite the waves here in France with his remark.

Actually, I found your blog in a totally random way and would like to tag you for this meme:

To do or not to do...

http://cuisinequotidienne.blogspot.com/2008/11/six-random-food-related-facts-about-me.html

Ornella said...

Ciao e piacere di conoscerti, complimenti per il blog, sembri davevro attivissima!

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