Obama Day in London!

Yesterday, as you all know, was a very important day in America's history with inauguration of Barack Obama. Although we all know how important it is for our country to have this man as our new president, people around the world also feel the same way. British citizens absolutely love Obama, which to me seems crazy because what would the U.S. president have anything to do with them. But, in a sense, it has a lot to do with them. People in the U.K. sees him not only as a symbol of hope for America, but for the entire world since essentially he is the world leader. They also look at it like if we can have a man of color as our head of state then anywhere can. And besides that, they hated Bush and couldn't wait for him to get out of office. The papers not only have talked about how important Barack is to the world, but to Americans around the world like me. Alot of Americans who live over here have expressed their constant worry about telling others where they are from for fear it might lead to humiliation, since we are all like Bush right? But, now more and more people are talking about how they can be proud to say they are from since Obama is loved everywhere. To me, it seems silly and ignorant that other countries viewed us negatively just because our previous President couldn't do his job right, but if Obama turns that all around for Americans such as myself living on foreign soil then so be it. It'll my life a heck of a lot easier over here..Also, yesterday the pound to dollar ratio went down to an all time low of a little under $1.40 to their 1 pound which is the lowest its been since 2001. Hopefully it stays that way..

Anyways, to celebrate the inauguration Madame Tussauds let any American in for free yesterday. So, of course I jumped on that. I mean why not? They unveiled their Obama figure with a huge oval office set up right in the middle of the museum. It was actually fun just running around in there looking at all the wax figures, I'm sure as some of you may have experienced in the U.S. museums. Then afterwards, Jamie, Ellen, and I headed to the Hard Rock Cafe where they were holding a large inauguration party. For some reason, I thought there would be a lot of Americans there, but actually that wasn't the case. It was probably about 80% British people, with one lady who actually dyed her hair red, wore a blue cap, and was decked out in stars and stripes, which was a little comical I have to say. There was also an Obama lookalike that I guess has made appearances on the MTV here, which was funny, especially when he talked and had a British accent. Also, for some reason we were at the hotspot where news stations (including CBS) and newspaper people were sent to take pictures and video, so it seemed like there was always a camera in my face. So, I'm probably in some London newspaper somewhere waving an American flag. When the inauguration actually began, I was surprised at how quiet the room got. When he was sworn in, the cheering was almost a little crazy and some people even had tears in their eyes. His speech made the same impression on the crowd and it was kind of touching to see how people around the world had come together for this American occasion. I made a video of Obamas speech and how people reacted. It was definitly an experience I'm glad I was a part of, even it was far from home.