After work we voted (Laura's first Prez Election!) and headed up to the windy city. We parked at Midway Airport and took the "el" downtown and met up with my pal Henry and his lovely girlfriend Clare...not after at least 35 failed phone calls and several useless shouts.
As for the night...it was stellar we got to the park just in time to hoot with the other 240 thousand people when the big jumbo monitors called Obama's victory. It was fantastic to be with such a large amount of people in the park sharing this historical event with one another as well as with the president elect himself. We encountered young and old, all sorts of different ethnicities, wealthy, poor, hippies and suits. The people watching was fantastic.
The energy within the crowd flowed through us and felt amazing. We were united because of one man and his ability to bring about a spark in millions of hearts. Last night as long as he won nothing bad could have happened in Grant Park. I was thrilled to be united with so many complete strangers. I would be a liar if I said that last nights events and experience didn't change me somehow. I'm not sure how yet but I keep thinking about the evening and how united so many different people are and were, which is a new feeling in America.
After his fantastic speech we took off hoping to beat the traffic, but since I think most of the people celebrating were from downtown there wasn't much of it where we were heading. I do want to commend the CTA with how efficient they were at moving so many thousands of people at once without a hitch (that I saw). It helped that the crowd was docile and extremely well behaved. That was probably because it was announced that every officer in Chicago would be working and vacations were canceled. All of which looked ready for a riot to break out at any moment. But despite the omnipresent patrolmen the reefer in the air was frequent and strong, which was quite surprising. We even spotted a sniper, which was super cool.
Congratulations America I look forward to a new chapter in our political lives. Lets just hope Bush doesn't "find" any more nukes in some other oil producing country in the next seventy days.
Check out some of my photos! most are best viewed at the tiny size right here:
Proof You can meet your friends at a Giant Political Rally:
3 comments:
that is pretty fantastic. i'm glad you were able to be there.
hooray!!
That is so amazing. There's something incredibly invigorating about being surrounded by thousands of people who all feel an intense amount of pride and joy for the same thing. I would have been crying my eyes out.
Why am I saying 'would have'? I was.
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