Obamanation

I meant to write this post earlier, but here it is anyway…

It was very interesting to watch a presidential inauguration in another country. As a group, we had an activity planned at the time of the live inauguration, but that got cancelled because of it. We were allowed to go to school to watch it live all together. Before we started watching, a Spanish radio personality interviewed some of us about what we thought about Obama and what we thought was going to happen. A lot of the questions focused around the economy, Guantanamo and the current conflicts in Palestine. It is incredible to think that the United States has such a big role and influence in other countries.

We watched the Inauguration on a Spanish news station and were hoping that at least Obama’s speech would still be in English, with Spanish subtitles. However, this was not the case. It was very frustrating to watch. The speech started strong as just Obama, but then Obama’s voice slowly got softer and a Spanish voice over was all we could hear. Thank God for CNN. We caught the live version on cnn.com. Although it was a very frustrating moment, it also put things into perspective. It was inspiring to know that this speech meant so much to so many more people than I ever realized.

A lot of people that I have talked to are very excited for Obama and think that he is going to change everything and make it all better. The news stations replayed his speech over and over again the rest of the day. It seems like everyone was just fed up with Bush and now is ready for something new.

I think it is also amazing how much people from other countries know about the United States and our politics. People know so much more than I do (and I thought I knew more than the average American…) I feel very ignorant and dumb almost every time I have a political conversation with someone from another country. Each day I have been here I broaden my perspective of the U.S. There are some positives and some negatives. Don’t take that the wrong way, I still love living where I do and would not want to necessarily spend the rest of my life in Europe, I just wish Americans could be more conscious and less selfish. It’s something to improve on and hopefully change in the future.