taste of madison

its been an exciting few days here in madison!

for the couple days leading up to the election there was more political activity than I've ever seen in one place. Voter registration was taking place everywhere, really- there were signs and flyers up, emails and radio spots, stands selling t-shirts and yard signs- and lots and lots of discussion. There was even a plane low flying around the city pulling an Obama flag.

Dan and I, here with no television, were listening to cnn on the computer and checking the sites often- all of a sudden, they called the entire west coast and Obama won it!!

We decided to blow off whatever else we were doing to go to a bar and watch the various speeches. We made it to pauls club just in time to hear most of McCains speech which was just a warm up (with a couple shots) for the speech to follow. Deciding the tv wasn't big enough in pauls, we booked it down to Brats (yeah, I know) and got a front row spot 2nd floor, won the flip on two leinies and watched one of the most anticipated speeches- and one of the best delivered.

After winning yet another flip on a pitcher we got the hell out of there (it was brats, after all) intending to go home but we got swept up in a huge march going on- capitol to bascom and all over the city- of students cheering and celebrating, playing music and waving flags.

I'm not kidding, all of bascom hill was packed with students! We were only one of thousands of celebrations around the world. Maybe, just maybe, I can be proud to say I am an american.