Experiencing US Election Day in Oz

They're partying in the streets of Sydney tonight too. It has been a great day to be an American. So many Australians have congratulated me and have reacted with true joy at the news of our election results. Miri and I watched the whole thing on an MSNBC live feed on my laptop over crappy Internet in a hotel lobby in Port Douglas, and a number of passersby stopped to watch for a minute over our shoulders and comment on the election. We were there for about 5 hours, corresponding to 7:30-12:30 DC time, and the hotel staff cheered with us at the 11PM announcement. I cried a little. The victory speech was amazing and I've watched it like 5 times now.

I missed the communications and multimedia overload I've grown accustomed to on election day, since it turned out there was no CNN on the hotel cable and I couldn't run both Instant Messenger and streaming TV at the same time on my laptop. And no cell service. After the speech we drove to the Cairns airport and flew to Sydney, and thank goodness for Sir Richard Branson adding live TV to his planes, cause we were able to watch CNN on the flight here. Oh, and Fox News too. There was a guy in an Obama T-shirt on the plane and I said, "Hey, nice shirt." And we shared a nice moment.