Drinking Obamas

9 pm on January 20th - after a long day and freezing temperatures, did we brave the cold weather and a crowded, smoky bar to see Obama's Inauguration? Hell yeah! Wouldn't have missed it for the world! Liz (my roommate), Seth, Carl, and I taxi-ed over to The Rickshaw in Sanlitun to watch the presidential inauguration on their flat-screen TVs broadcasting CNN (I miss CNN!). We couldn't hear a thing for the first 3 hours since the bar was full of people from all over chatting about Obama and American politics. It was fun hearing Americans explain everything that had happened during the election and describe Obama's cabinet appointees to their British and Chinese buddies. There was definitely a palpable sense of pride in being American all around us that night.

So we had a couple of drinks (of course, one of the drink specials was named The Obama, and of course, we all ordered one) and the bar finally quieted down to complete silence as we watched Obama take the presidential oath and make his inaugural speech. I think many Americans are now holding their heads a bit higher after that night. 2009 is turning out to be a new start in so many ways!