Omnes una manet nox

One night awaits us all. 

I didn't take my camera last night downtown, which is probably good because it would have broken, I know it. So you'll just have to believe my saga.

Niki and I drove with Meris, Dashy, Tanya, and Mark to Dashy's apartment in Dupont-ish area. as soon as we got out of the garage, we see hundreds of people running. Of course, we decide to run with them! Niki and I get separated from the other 4, and we just kept running and running down the middle of the street, screaming and shouting "I love you!" and "We did it!" and high-fiving and hugging people leaning out their car windows. 

We had no idea where we were, so Niki and I hailed a cab and told him to take us to the White House. He said "Still?" and we said "YES!" and then I made friends with him. He is from Iran! I told him that I would like to go there someday. We got out of the cab and gave him like a 70% tip, and then started running some random way, screaming and hugging the whole way. 

Somehow we realized we were going the wrong way, so we turned around and went back towards our goal, the White House. We had just hugged and high-fived a block full of people and we did covered the same folks all over again. A random guy with a snare drum appeared out of nowhere, so we started following him and screaming "O-BA-MA!" to his drum beat, and it turned into a little mini-parade through the park that's behind the White House (Liberty Park? something like that. It's supposedly haunted. very creepy).

We finally got to the front/back of the White House (the back is technically the Ellipse side, and you can get much closer to the back, but most people don't know that, so we were at the front but it seems like it's the back), and there were at least a couple thousand people there. Throngs and throngs of people. A giant cardboard cutout of President Elect Obama, people with signs, people with flags, people with drums. Everyone hugging everyone. High fives for all. conversations with people who had to be at work at nine, just like me, about how we changed the world tonight. Everyone screaming Congratulations we did it, Yes We Can, Yes We Did. 

At some point we met a man from Kenya, who gave Niki his email address because she's going to Kenya next term. He's going to hook her up with his cousins in Nairobi! Hugs all around. 

We finally caught a cab, split with some random guy from some small news network, but then we actually drove past Mark, Meris, Tanya, and Dashy, so we hopped out, tipped the driver 120% or so (he drove us maybe 1/2 a mile, and we were in love with everyone), and got in Mark's car to get home. We drove all the way home with the windows down, screaming out the window at every person we saw. 

Oh, and at some point on the street we made friends with a random French dude, and he was on the phone with the French radio, so we were on the radio?? I screamed in French "VIVE LA FRANCE JE VOUZ AIMEZ" which I'm not sure is right. I spoke some French to someone else from France, and he said I had a good accent even though I spoke the wrong words to him (I told him "bonne nuit, which I knew is wrong, but still. Oops.) And then I ran across some people from Spain, and I yelled at them "VIVA ESPANA" as they were sucked back into the crowd. And I missed Lindsey, and everyone who is abroad, and wished that you all had been there dancing in front of the White House on this wonderful night of victory

VICTORY

OBAMERICA!!!!