It is an exciting time to study abroad as an American college
student. I have found that whether I am sitting in the classroom,
having a cup of coffee somewhere, or simply strolling down the street with friends, as
soon as anyone in a five-foot radius realizes that I'm an American, they can’t
resist asking, “Obama or McCain?”
Even though we were far away from the root of the action (except for Tara, who was in D.C.!) last night, the Global Colgate students couldn't miss out on this monumental night.
Here's what we were all doing as America finally answered the question the world has been asking:
I watched the result coming in around 4 am Cairo time on CNN coming out of the NileSat
antenna. All us Americans in the area hosted various parties, so I moved around
to keep myself awake. Egyptians heavily supported Obama, especially all the
taxi drivers who lobbied hard for my vote. They are all remarkably well
informed about American politics, so to an extent that almost makes me
embarrassed for the ignorance of many of my countrymen who actually get to
vote. I've heard opinions about internationals having 1/2 a vote in US
elections because the results impact the world so greatly. Nearly all the AUC
students I watched the results with were pro-Obama—a UMASS democrat from PA
(Obama), a republican from N. California (McCain), me from Maryland
(Obama), a republican West Point grad from Alabama (McCain), and others. But on the
whole all the results came as expected and there was no rioting in the streets
of Cairo, so
there's not much to report. The city is all partied out from Al Ahly's (an
Egyptian soccer club) win in the African's Cup championship anyway.
-Chris Thompson, Cairo
My classmates and I on the Japan Study Group had gathered at
Professor Hudson's apartment for our regular discussion meeting for "The
Cultural Heritage of the Kyoto Nara Region" class. Instead of going on a walk to the some nearby shrines and
temples, we streamed Obama's speech from the Fox website and stood, the eleven
of us, around the computer watching and listening intently. Throughout the
speech you could tell that many among us were sincerely moved and finally
hopeful about America's
future, me among them.
Since the class was sufficiently interrupted, Prof. Hudson decided to just
leave it at that, and instead discussed our plans for when we will be traveling
north to Toyama:
whether or not we wanted to take a day to see the Gasho Praying-hand style
villages in the "Japanese Alps" before we would sail south to
Ogasawara in December. We were also briefed on our plans to go to the Kyoto National Museum
tomorrow and
discuss pottery in Japanese history and its significance.
So, an historic event in American politics coupled with a casual discussion on
the thousands of years of history that we have been exploring and studying here
in Japan.
-Alex Sklyar, Japan
The place to be in Prague last night was The
Globe. While the walls of this
café/lounge may be painted a deep red, the hundreds of US college students and expats
gathered here were definitely in favor of the blue. This
became particularly obvious when Palin appeared on the projector screen that was showing CNN and a very audible hiss was coming from the group sitting below us on the first floor. I had a wonderful time sharing this vibrant
scene with Andrew Wickerham, who was passing through Prague during his fall break travels. Although we couldn’t help but wish we were
back on campus to experience such an exciting night, it was great to be
surrounded by such an enthusiastic bunch.
Unfortunately, I couldn’t make it the whole night because I was so
exhausted from my tour de Italy which ended around noon yesterday, Andrew, our
resident Manchester student, stayed back to continue the Colgate representation
and watch the results come in.
-Brittany Messenger, Prague
Last night, we watched the election together in an apartment.
Professor Calo joined us to watch as we discovered who our next president would
be. Unfortunately, she had to leave to catch the tube back to her house
before we heard any good news. Professor canceled class for Wednesday
morning so that we could stay up and watch for what we hoped would be a great historical
moment. Although I was not able to stay awake, there were many of the
group who stayed up watching BBC until the moment it was announced that
Barack Obama would be the 44th President of the United States. As we watched
from outside the US,
many parents called to share in the excitement. It was a night to go down
in history and we are all just happy to be a part of it. We are very
excited and happy for our new President. This morning a lot of us are watching
BBC and its coverage, still in amazement that we did it.
-Kali McMillan, London
Instead of studying for my final in two days, I spent a good
six hours watching coverage of the election. I sat in the lounge of my
residential complex with about 30 other Americans and Australians. The
overall consensus in the room was that we wanted Obama to win. It's been
amazing to see the international support for Obama. One Australian, after
learning that Obama won, said, "I guess the world will survive now!"
The cafeteria workers were so happy about the results that they handed
out free popsicles to those of us watching the coverage. It was also cool
because Australians my age don't really care about their own politics, but they
were excited to see what happened with our election. For the first time
in a long time, I was proud to be an American (as cheesy as that sounds).
-Becky Plesser, Australia
To celebrate election day in D.C. my study group
went out together after class. Like true Americans, we got burgers and
fries for dinner and went to two bars near Capitol Hill. The bars were
SO crowded! We could hardly walk in/out and ending up only spending a
short time. It was fun watching how different people reacted as the
election results came in. D.C. is pretty liberal, so most people were
very excited throughout the night. I got home around 10:15 and watched
the news until after Obama's acceptance speech. Most D.C. residents
seem thrilled to have Obama as our new president elect.
-Tara Tendler, Washington, D.C.
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