President Obama

On election night, after a long day at the Obama phone bank, we headed down to Grant Park to witness history with the rest of the city and country. It was an amazing experience, standing amongst the over 200,000 people there that night. Besides the thrill and excitement of the night, it was incredible to see so many different ages and races of people coming together to experience the event. We sat between a middle aged Chinese couple that barely spoke English on one side, twenty something college kids on the other and African Americans in front, and a Sikh behind. A group of Muslim women asked us to take a photo of them together as the evening concluded. It was thrilling to see the group truly representative of this country come together to celebrate.

The city of Chicago did a fabulous job setting up the park to make Obama's speech accessible to all. While we didn't get tickets for the area in front of the stage, we found a great spot in the north end of the park right near one of the giant screens. It was a bit odd to be sitting outside in the park watching CNN with everyone else, but was wonderful to watch the excitement build as the states came in for President Elect Obama.

Here are a few shots from our evening.

This is just one small part of the crowd. The sea of people was similar in every direction around us.


A nearby woman watching the election results come in on the jumbo-tron.


Liza in her Obama gear. Luckily we had some wonderfully warm November weather.




Yannie waiting for the final results.


And the crowd went wild!


It's such a pleasure to finally have a president that really knows how to give a great speech. It brought cheers to the crowd and tears to the eyes. We watched it again when we got home and are so glad we decided to go downtown. The energy of the crowd brought something special to the night that we'd have missed had we stayed home.


The walk towards home was through a chaotic and ecstatic mass of people. It was exciting to be a part of this history. We look forward to the hope and promise of these next four years!