We really wanted to see Barack Obama's inauguration with other people. To our great excitement, we found out about an expat event happening at a place called Casa Bar in Recoleta.
Interested in trying the drink of the day - the Obama Mama with Bacardi, Everclear, Midori and Apple Pucker (among other things)? Didn't think so....
Anyway we showed up promptly at 2, not wanting to miss anything. The bar was virtually empty when we arrived so we snagged some prime seats.
The bar itself is pretty cool - it's a remodeled former house (hence "Casa" Bar) with an extensive imported beer list. Jay ordered a Guiness and I got a Bass Ale.
We waited for the festivities to start and watch the TVs, which we couldn't help but notice were set to Fox News (!!!). The announcers were obsessed with Jill Biden's goof on Oprah the other day, and predicting a catfight with Hillary. They also liked to say things like: "As Don Imus told me this morning...." or "I was talking to Karl Rove earlier and he says Obama has already made several key mistakes..." We thought: the irony. We're going to be forced to watch the inauguration on the one network that is PISSED about it. Meanwhile more people were showing up and filling the reserved tables.
Luckily around this time someone convinced the bar to change the station to CNN. This made me muy contenta.
The inauguration finally was on. The moment we've been waiting for, phonebanking for, voting for! Hooray!
Only there was one little snag. The (by now substantial) crowd above was comprised not of Obama supporters, or even Obama haters, but indifferent, inebriated "study abroad" students on a class field trip. They did fun stuff like play a drinking game during the speech (worse yet, it was so generic that they got to drink every time Obama said "America" or "Economy" - that kind of thing. They could have at least tried to be clever about it.) They also talked nonstop, making the TV impossible to hear, and milled around, which blocked the TV. Occasionally due to the frustration of the standing room crowd behind them, they would momentarily shut up and pretend to pay attention. But we really only got to hear Obama's speech later on, at home, online. And it wasn't quite the big love-fest we'd imagined, celebrating with and hugging joyful strangers and so on. Sigh.
We left after the final prayer, at which point it seemed like some kind of street fight was brewing between the students and the Obama supporters. Which might have been cathartic...
We topped off our "expat" day with an icy lemonade at Mark's Deli, which is near our apartment in Palermo Soho.
We also got a sandwich and salad that were too mediocre to photograph. Please don't go there!
But all's well that end's well: we finally got our cry on late last night, seeing photos like this one.
It's kind of hard to understand the scale of what has just happened, but it sure feels good.
(Casa Bar is located at 1150 Rodriguez Pena between Santa Fe and Arenales. Mark's Deli is located at El Salvador 4701, at Armenia.)


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