Monday, November 10, 2008

Halloween, Elections & more

Yes, we can! Obama was elected as the new president of the United States of America the last week. Not a lot changed since then but Flavio can still tell a lot of new stories. The past weeks were the perfect opportunity to make real American experiences. Let me start with it.

Rain: Rubber boots can be fashionable
Seattle is probably the only place on planet earth where rubber boots are really fashionable. The rain season started here and you may wish to type "weather seattle" in google to find out what the weather is here right now. The weather forecast hasn't much to do because they can just copy the forecast of the previous day and use it for the next day. The variety of rain boots is incredible! You might want to look at this link. Aren't the colors incredible :) ?

Man on fire
No, this isn't the perfect Halloween costume: A tragic incident happened on the Campuson the day of Halloween. A man set himself on fire on the red square, which is the main square of the university (something like the Polyterasse). The brave reader can read the story here and look at pictures: Students rush to save a man who set himself on fire.

Halloween
Halloween was another American key experience! Already a month before October 31st you can start buying costumes and other Halloween utilities. Halloween is one of the biggest festivals here: For the children it is a paradise because of the trick-or-treating, where they proceed from house to house to ask for candy (treats). If they don't get any they will play tricks on the house owners. For all the older people it is the perfect opportunity to act like a child. My costume was Kellog's Tony the Tiger. I already owned a t-shirt with Tony on it so the only things I needed were a mask and Frosted Flakes ;) Plus some random golden chains which made me the hip hop version of Tony the Tiger. Look at the pictures to find out more about my dress and see how my friends dressed up.
There is one comment I want to make about the costumes of the US girls: for most of them Halloween is a great opportunity to dress up in a really slutty way. Most of them are wearing skirts that barely cover anything... it is up to you to judge if that is good or bad.
This is actually not the last comment I will make because I could be part of another really American experience: a fraternity party. A fraternity is a brotherhood with a Greek name (Pi-Kappa-Alpha or Alpha-Beta-Gamma). Membership is limited to men and the own big houses close to campus and people say that they are crazy, drink a lot and have huge house parties. So on the day before Halloween we could get into one house and I have to confirm; it is like in the movies. They have a huge house with a huge party basement. Loads of drunk people doing dirty dancing, that's probably the best description and that's were I stop.

Election Night
Wow, election night was a blast! The atmosphere was incredible - basically it felt like French revolution back in 1789. US citizens and even all the international people felt absolutely happy that Obama got elected. The alternative was simply ridiculous (Muhahahaha). After watching the election ralley at a friends place we went to Capitol Hill to a bar to watch Obama's great speech and after that every single soul started marching downtown for the manifestetion of Obama! Absolutely insane! Ten thousands of people were marching in downtown Seattle, the streets were packed and everybody huged and high-fived the next person. Great atmosphere.
What was a bit astonishing is that everybody was still so sceptic until the last minute whether Obama will win or not. Now he is there and he will move into the White House soon.

Seattle neighborhoods
Seattle has many many beautiful neighborhoods. Most of them though have a really small core. I checked out Seattle Center. This is were the world fair in 1962 took place. They built the Space Needle, a monorail and other very futuristic things. On another day I discovered to the international district to see the small Chinatown they have here. Please have a look at the pictures.

Look at the pictures

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