THE VIEW FROM LONDON, PART 2

"We're interested in the US the way we're interested in a cricket match", said one drunken reveller to Gary Moskowitz, who braved London's election-night parties on our behalf ...

I witnessed the most important American election of my lifetime from abroad. My girlfriend and I--Americans, both--had been living in San Francisco, but a great job opportunity for her lured us both here without a second thought. We've been in London for only a few weeks, but I stumbled onto invites to three election-night parties. The result was a nine-hour evening, filled with thousands of people, throaty song, free Burger King, multiple cups of coffee and someone spitting on my notebook. America also elected its first black president. The following is my best recollection of the often bizarre festivities:

I arrive at London's American Embassy for their cocktail party at around 10pm, together with an estimated 2,000 other people. I'm seriously underdressed. An all-female singing troupe belts out gilded tunes, such as Sinatra's "Come Fly with Me", while men in suits and women in cocktail dresses sip wine.

"I felt let down by Bush," Kara Watt tells me. She's a 26-year-old from Wisconsin who belongs to the Republicans Abroad group, which co-organised this event. "McCain can reach across the aisle. He's very strong and fiscally responsible."

Just before midnight I'm scolded by a Starbucks manager for attempting to interview one of his employees--a Latvian teen wearing a plastic Uncle Sam top hat and a red, white, and blue lei around his neck. People are eating free Subway sandwiches and Burger King fries and whoppers and dancing to a cover band belting out Johnny Cash songs. Patricia Burrows, an Embassy employee, is meandering through the party dressed like the Statue of Liberty. She tells me, "There's a black man running, and a woman running in this election. I am so happy to see that. I think It's excited the populace of America."

A young guy with a mohawk and an American flag painted on the side of his head bumps into me and spills my coffee at around 1am. I turn to ask Chris, a guy in his early 60s married to a woman from Manhattan, how important he thinks this election is for Brits. "The US is like a video game that we Brits like to watch", he tells me. "We don't understand it one bit, but we're fascinated." I'm not sure if it's because he's drunk or excited, but he accidentally spits a few times as we're talking. "We're interested in the US the way we're interested in a cricket match."

At another party at a bar in East London, I speak with a Brooklyn native named Rick Stewart who tells me, "I predicted this in 1992 in my master's thesis. The 60s black leadership is crap. For a black person to achieve higher political status, they have to appeal to the moral goodness of the American people. Barack is doing that."

By 3:30am, all eyes are glued to a large TV screen as electoral college tallies roll in. One BBC analyst discounts Obama as a "novice." A former Bush speech writer says McCain's biggest flaw was running a "biography campaign"--he talked about what he did rather than about what he was going to do. People in the crowd, both Americans and Brits, are cheering, hugging and swigging pints. A woman at the Obama rally in Chicago comes on TV and says she's so happy that her children can witness a black man elected president of the United States in their lifetime. I actually feel a little tear well up in my eye.

At the third and final party, at an after-hours bar in north-east London, the crowd goes completely wild when projections come in sometime after 4am that Obama has won the electoral votes of the entire West Coast. People chant "USA, USA" over and over. A same-sex couple in front of me hug and kiss each other after each electoral vote goes to Obama. "Obama is the next chapter of American history," says Kesso, an American from Golden, Colorado who's lived in London for ten years. "I think about the US proudly now."

I watch Palin fight back tears during McCain's concession speech. People in the televised crowd gaze up at him as if his loss is the biggest let-down of their lives. Obama's acceptance speech in Chicago is greeted with feeling--on TV and in this dingy London bar--with people crying and embracing each other.

Maybe I'm a sucker, but I think he delivers one of the most moving speeches I've ever heard. Soon after, we all stumble out into the early London morning debating things like China, Iran, racism and which bus to take home.

Picture credit: maxintosh/flickr (top), chantoozie/flickr

(Gary Moskowitz is a journalist and a musician, now based in London.)