Election Frenzy

Todd and I were bummed to find out that no one was hosting an election watch party in Eindhoven!  The Hague apparently had a massive party that began at 5 am this morning, but driving an hour and a half to get there at that time just wasn't in the cards for us.

It has actually been interesting watching how much hype the American presidential election gets in the Netherlands.  It was all over the news here (both Dutch channels and then of course BBC and CNN).  People outside of the U.S. really do care about the election and definitely have opinions.  Everyone is pro-Obama.  I haven't met a single European who was supporting Romney.  When I traveled to Dublin, I ended up discussing American politics with a few people.  One man, an Italian, told me all about how President Obama has changed the perception of the U.S. throughout the world.  He says that people look upon the U.S. now in a different, more positive way.  Not to get all political, but I think that's a pretty strong "pro" to put in Obama's column.

With no watch party to attend, I needed to take control myself.  I set my alarm for 4:30 this morning, and I only pressed snooze once!  I felt like a little kid on Christmas getting to go downstairs and see what was going on back in the States.  It was pretty nice to not have to deal with hours on end of speculations and to just jump in right when the good stuff was happening.  The CNN results came in around 5:20 our time.  I stayed awake for that and then took a little cat nap until Romney's concession speech and of course Obama's victory speech.  I thought it was great, and I am happy he is our President again for 4 more years.

Did anyone stay up watching the results and speeches back in the US of A?  That was a late night for you if you did!

Todd and I head out to Italy on Sunday, so prepare for a bit of a drought in the blog writing until we get back late next week!  Until then!