Yes, I've been up all night

And no, I'm not going to bed anytime soon. In fact, I have to warn you this entry will get a bit sappy (or like REALLY sappy) but I assure you that's all because of lack of sleep. Regardless of my political preference, which is probably known by most of the readers of this travelogue, I think this election was very exciting. Therefore, I thought it was completely worth it to stay up all night and watch the coverage via a million different live streams and maps that exist on the Internet. I'm glad I voted, I'm glad turnout was relatively high, and my mind is definitely racing on caffeine, some healthy skepticism, and some genuine excitement. But whatever. The interesting part was seeing the most fascinating election of my lifetime from a foreign country, completely removed from what was actually going on. Of course the internet has made the world a bit smaller, but I still felt the physical divide not least because the first polls closed at 1 AM here. To answer many questions, "Yes" the Norwegians are happy Obama won, "Yes" most of Europe expressed a somewhat ecstatic preference for Obama in my travels, and "No" I don't think my vote actually counted for much. But it's the fact that people really got excited and decided to go vote (and I don't give all the credit for that to Obama, McCain managed a fair amount of votes himself) that makes me feel patriotic today. I can say that the Norwegians and international students I talked to today viewed us Americans a little bit differently than they did before Election Day, and mostly positively. Any negative view can probably be attributed to the fact that a few of us were absolutely delirious from drinking the darkest coffee in humanity's history. I don't want to alienate people who happen to have a different ideological background from my own, so believe me when I say this has little or nothing to do with the results: Today we earned our democracy in a way I guess we have to every election, and the rest of the world acknowledges us for that. I wasn't there to see it, but I could feel it even over the internet. I'm proud to be American not because Barack Obama won an election, but because I was in a foreign country and could feel the U.S.A. come alive. I heard the anger, the joy, the music, the rhetoric, the division, the drunkenness, and a million other conflicting and awesome things. But I didn't hear any apathy or hopelessness from anywhere in America. Just the beginning of a discussion that I hope doesn't fade when the hype is over, and which I believe could shape a generation. It's a hard thing to define, especially from overseas, but it feels like something woke up that was sleeping for a bit. I have one wish now, and that's that people take this opportunity to keep making their voices heard through civil disagreement as well as hopeful affirmation. When I get home, I'll exercise both of these voices as well as many more and I hope that America will be united through all its people using their voices together, in harmony and in dissonance. It will take a song to keep us united, so just keep singing and I believe we'll be fine.