The Election Night Victory Party was a collosal success!

Thanks to all who volunteered, all who participated and all who changed the way politics will be done in America!

A special thank you goes to the decoration, technical and entertainment teams. Plus, the overwhelming co-operation from the Cafe Central team!

We had a lot of fun! Check out the other posts on the NRW website for press coverage of the event.

Jesse Wright, an Australian blogger who was at the party, summed up the feeling of the evening. I'm including it here because it is a fantastic read...

Dienstag Abend, Amerika, Ich und die Welt

On Tuesday night I rode my bike to Essen Hauptbahnhof at about 10pm and got on an RE11 train to Cologne. The reason I did this was because there was something in the dark of that night, like a meditative silence, a stillness in the air, a knowing poise. I knew something crucial was happening and I knew it was too important to sleep through.

It was a late train but the night was only beginning. As it passed through Düsseldorf I heard some English words being carried up the stairs into my carriage. They were two young American students dressed in vests and overcoats and drinking from a bottle of wine. I couldnt just sit there listening to their loud voices so I walked down the aisle to where they had taken a seat. One of them pointed in an excited fashion to my t-shirt as I walked by. I asked them if they were going to "that thing tonight" and they affirmed, motioned for me to sit and we immediately started speaking about Battleground States, Democrats, need and change. Marco and Max, my first friends for the night.

They were surprisingly right-leaning, like in another election they may well vote republican but they had made their minds up and swung the other way this time. So we caught the U-bahn through Cologne and made our way to the Hotel Chelsea, a Hotel of architectural interest with a suave Parisian cafe at its foot. As I walked in a mild panic overtook me, I knew no one. Not only that but the place was so alarmingly (read disgustingly) American, streamers hanging from every precipice, people dressed in garish flag-saturated attire, an American flag cake, Oreos™ as far as the eye could see, red, white and blue confetti being thrown, 'O'-shaped cookies (being guarded by a woman whom, upon my inspection of the cookies, severely informed me that if I 'touch it' I 'eat it', so I ate an 'O'-shaped blue cookie and it was delicious). I bought a badge that read "Obama-Biden 2008" and later saw that donations were strictly for U.S. citizens. I felt like an outsider, an Australian in a room full and lively with Americans.

I rushed outside to find Max and Marco, my only connections for the night . I stood next to them feeling not so much a part of their conversation as apart from it. And that's when my night began. A short girl sidled up next to me and introduced herself as Ana, told me she was also here alone and we began a long and involved discussion about surfing in Spain, Portugal, Munich (yes), and the coast of Australia. We could also speak about the cultural pitfalls of having a realtionship with a South American, we spoke in Spanish and realised we were both from Essen. We established that we would be catching the train home together. But that would be in a long time. It was only midnight. I didn't have to look for somebody else to speak to because a lively New-Yorker had grabbed me and started enthusiastically telling me about his adventure in Perth riding in the back of a 'Pick-Up Truck' (ute), killing something and eating it. He bought me a beer. I swung around and a lanky drunk man launched into a joke especially for me and directed to me. "How do you seperate 2 wrestling alligators?" he asked "Just give 'em a coupla Yanks!" and he began laughing uproarously. I was surprised at the self deprecating nature of his ha-ha when I realised that these were real Americans. They were not the type to be understood by the harsh generalisations the rest of the world levels them with but they were intelligent people, worldly people willing to acknowledge their faults and to sometimes laugh about them too. But tonight we were all there because we took the faults of America very seriously. I suddenly felt a bit more comfortable with all the colours and the flags.

The rest of the night was easy. I met a demure French woman, a man from Kenya, a man who escaped from California and never wants to go back for reasons unexplained but perhaps not inexplicable. All the while I was trying not to get too drunk, remember, something important was happening. Every hour or so there were updates from CNN on the big screen. Kentucky was lost, Vermont was won, Georgia lost, Pennsylvania won, Ohio won, New York, Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin. Confidence grew, electricity restored itself to the air, building. By 3am enough states had been decided and although not official, it was clear that tonight really would be the night that we were all expecting. A night that most of us had endured 8 very dark, anxious years for.

It was coming up to 6am and the room wasn't overflowing as it had been but decently full. We all knew each other now and had formed an attentive crowd around the TV, Wolf Blitzer was saying something and the electoral map projected above our heads was looking wonderfully blue. At 5am Obama had won Virginia, the state in which the night before he had given one of the most incredible and candid speeches I have ever seen from a politician. Virginia was important. Sure enough three minutes later the screen flashed and Wolf was standing next to those incredible words "Barack Obama elected president". The mood in the room was ecstatic, that buzz that people talk about was there and it was palpable. A grey-haired woman with a 'Buck Fush' t-shirt exclaimed "I love everybody in this room!" and I had no reservations yelling back "I love you too!!". I'm not sure anyone heard me though because everyone spontaneously responded in much the same fashion.

We settled down to watch the speech. The Cologne crowd had woken up and were already setting off for work and study but our night had hit fever-pitch and the excitement was transformed into earnest concentration as the man of the hour spoke. The 18 minutes of that speech meant so much to me and I have the feeling I will always remember where I was for the rest of my life.

Obama looked different on the stage, super-composed. As if he were the personification of the stillness in the air that night. Poised. Halfway through the speech a trumpet player who called himself 'Jimmy Boots' turned to me and said, with latent tears "You know, for the first time in my life... I'm proud of my country" I put my hand on his back and choked through the response "I'm proud of your country too." Cheesy? Maybe at any other time but not this moment. The flags and colours all around me stopped intimidating me and looking in bad taste but had changed, they symbolised something different to me now. I really 'got' America at that point, redemption and change had come. The speech finished and an old democrat man emotionally remarked "He's a genius. That speech is exactly what we need, he's a genius".

A girl I'd met asked me why I was there if I wasn't American and I said something like "America has been so broken for so long now. I don't know if Obama is going to be able to fix it but I think he's the best chance they've got. Someone has been able to mobilize the people away from hatred, greed and ignorance, to cut through the untruths. I think that is very important for the world at large and I didn't want to sleep through it. Finally someone is going to work toward repairing America." I didn't know I was so eloquent, well maybe I didnt say exactly that, it was probably more like "I don't know, ay!!".

The best thing about tonight was this; I came into the room knowing no one and left with a room full of friends. That's what the night was about for the whole world I think; friendship, goodwill and unity. On the way out I saw Marco and Max sitting silently together, Max had tears in his eyes. So did I, I think everyone did.

What an amazing night. What a wonderful day. What an essential time to be alive.

Jesse Wright

-Bill