A Part of History

Sorry I haven't updated in awhile. My life has been really crazy. I went home to Maine for a quick weekend to see friends and family. It was very fun to go home and get a dose of fall. We don't have much of a fall here so it was lovely. Then came Halloween. Which was hilarious to be in a preschool classroom to see all the costumes. They were so cute and so excited to act the part of their costumes. Lots of superheroes. Dumbo, tigger, and a puppy. We even had Barack Obama. They were not too crazy which was a relief because everyone talked about how bad it would be. They all brought in a ton of candy and ate none of it which was good too because its bad enough when they have syrup for breakfast. On Tuesday they all got the opportunity to vote. And since one of our students was Obama a bunch of them decided to vote for the student as opposed to the "other guys". Obama won by a landslide in our classroom. In the school Mccain only got 10 votes. I mean we are in south side chicago. On Tuesday night the majority of my roommates and I went downtown to Grant Park to see the festivities. Grant Park is actually not really the whole area but most people refer to it as that. We did not have tickets and ended up pretty far away from the area where Obama's actual rally was happening but we were still surrounded by an enormous crowd. I got to meet up with Kayla and her friends which was so great to be able to experience it with her! I took a bunch of pictures that I will post soon. As well as a video of his speech. You can here it echo a couple of times. First our speakers, then the speakers near us, and then his actual speakers. It was so insane. When CNN put up the breaking news. The entire city erupted. I got chills and a lot of people were crying. The whole experience in itself was incredible. People from all walks of life were there. White, Black, Latino and every age imaginable. It was really moving to see one man unify a very divided city. It was also extremely safe. There were no incidents near us and not once did I feel like I wasn't safe. They estimated the number of people at 240,000 but it had to be at least 400,000 or more. You could not see past the amount of people on the streets. I was blown away at the site of everyone leaving the area. We had to walk pretty far to get to a train but that wasn't a problem either. The next day our program had a photo op with Mayor Daley. He was not what I expected and is very much a politician. Not answering questions directly but trying to feign his interest in what we were asking. It was still cool to meet someone everyone talks about all of the time. Thats it for now. I am off to Catholic Underground which is an event at UIC. Should be fun! I will post pictures and video later!