Si, possiamo!

I was riding my bike home yesterday morning, crossing Piazza Maggiore at 7:00 along with the first rays of sunlight, and it hit me - President Barack Obama. I didn't know whether to laugh or to cry, so I did both. I probably looked like a crazy person, racing through the piazza, letting out a whoop of joy as tears streamed down my face. (This is a picture that Leslie took of me before Obama took the election - so imagine me looking more or less like this, but much more disheveled after having stayed up all night.)
As much as I would have loved to be in the United States for this election, it was incredible to see the amount of support that Italians have for Obama. We were all crowded into the public library, hundreds of us, watching CNN on big screens, cheering and shouting "Si, possiamo! Yes we can!" I don't think there was a single person in the room who didn't support Obama. Most of the people there were Italian, and the few Americans were easily identified by our facepaint, which attracted a lot of attention.

When I say that we attracted attention, I mean it - I was interviewed on the local tv station Rai 3, and we were photographed several times. This photo of my friend Molly and I was printed in the Bologna-based newspaper Il Resto del Carlino! You can tell by our concerned expressions that it was still early in the evening...
Unfortunately I wasn't able to post the clip of me that was shown on television, but it was extremely short so you're not missing out too much.

At 3:30AM, when the library closed, I went to a friend's house and curled up on the couch with three of my friends to watch the rest of the election unfold. We were all exhausted - that is, until CNN projected Obama as the winner of the election, at which point we were no longer tired. At first we were ecstatic, and then speechless as we watched it all... watched McCain's extremely graceful concession speech, watched thousands and thousands of people in Chicago screaming "Yes, we can!" in celebration of Obama's victory, watched Martin Luther King's gospel church singing their hearts out, watched Rev. Jesse Jackson weeping in the crowd, watched Obama accept his victory in one of the most touching and humble speeches that I have ever seen delivered by a politician... it was beautiful. (It was also hilarious, because we were watching the speech live on CNN.com, but also dubbed in Italian on TV...)

I have never been so proud to be an American, so inspired by a president or so hopeful for the future. Yes we can! Si, possiamo!

Ahh, so exciting. Still hasn't sunk in completely, I think...