So clearly, I chose to spend the night elsewhere.
The biggest problem with election night in Paris was the time difference. Election parties ran from 12a-6a, due to the 6 hour difference from Eastern time. Parisian metro's are not open 24 hours. In fact, on weeknights, they technicaly run until 1am. Unfortunately, 1am is NOT when the last train leaves, so to be safe you really want to be on your train closer to 12:30am.
If I had the option to party-hop via metro, I probably would have gone to Palais M, where the Young Dems party was. But I couldn't. My roommate tried to RSVP the day of the party and got an email telling her that they were no longer accepting RSVPs because the venue could only hold 1000 people and 1200 has RSVPed. The idea of spending 6 hours in a room with 1200 people was incredibly unappealing to me, since I tend to get anxious in crowds.
Instead, I opted to join the kids from my program at the same dorm where I went to the Halloween party. My roommates and I grabbed a few bottles of wine and hopped in the metro for the 45 minute trek across town. The kids at AEPP had planned for a very American night, complete with beer pong and hot dogs. I straightened my hair for the first time since being in Paris!
With my friend's Meggie and Melanie, relatively early in the night
They hooked up a computer a streamed CNN live, projecting it onto the wall in a common room.
Photo shamelessly stolen from my friend Kiersten's blog
While things were rowdy until about 1:30, after that it quieted down a bit. There were probably only 20 or so of us awake around ~5am, when CNN announced Obama as the predicted winner. I think growing up through the 2000 and 2004 elections has left me incredibly jaded, because as everyone else began to celebrate, I couldn't get excited. I was so afraid that even though we looked like we had won, it might not be true. It wasn't until McCain took the stage and began his concession speech that it really set it. I was holding champagne in one hand and my roommates hand in the other when I realized I was shaking.
Also stolen from Kiersten's blog
Between the projection and Obama's acceptance speech, people ran upstairs to wake up the American's who had gone to bed, and I have to say that having people running gleefully downstairs in their pajamas definitely reminded me of Christmas, and a really great one at that.
Being that 98% of my programs is ladies, and the acceptance speech came on at 6am, pretty much all of us were in tears when Obama started to speak. It would have been awesome to be at Palais M, but I'm still glad that I was with a group of Americans my age who were as excited about this election as I was. The vibe in the room that morning was awesome, and while no one is really "excited" to be leaving Paris, it makes it a lot easier to face the idea of heading home with the hope for a new administration this January.
We headed home shortly after Obama's speech, getting in a bit after 7am. I hit the couch (certain I wouldn't wake up from my bed) and napped from 7:30-9am. I don't remember my alarm going off. I woke up after it went off a second time, luckily I hit snooze and didn't just turn it off, since I had to be in class at 10:30, ughhh.
The first thing I did when I woke up was check out how the ballot measures were doing. I updated the blog for my Gay class around 9:15 saying that Prop 8 was passing, but not all districts were reporting. I was shocked later in the day to see that it really had. Another tough thing about being abroad for this was waiting so long for bloggers to react! I wanted to read what people had to say, but there was a distinct lull, since most Americans don't really start work until 2pm Parisian time.
PS I didn't go to bed the following night until midnight (for no good reason) so I was awake for 37 hours, with a 1.5 hour nap in the middle. My sleep schedule is fuuuucked.
Anyway, I'm very please with the Presidential result, as well as the passed proposals in Michigan. As for Prop 8, well... it's not over yet.
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