Our night started at '40 Seconds' club near Potsdamerplatz, an expensive glitzy place on the 8th floor of a modern looking building. The terrace had an spectacular view of the surrounding area (which my iPhone has done little to show off):
However, we decided to move to the Babylon cinema at around 12:30. As the tickets were sold out we had to wait for people to come out and ask them for the wristbands they were wearing before we could get in, but by 2am and after a coffee from a nearby bar we got in and were ready for the results to start coming in.
In-between updates from the CNN web-feed there was live music from a band called 'Folkadelic' which played some old American classics and even 'I am a man of constant sorrow' from the film 'Oh brother, where art thou':
As the results started to come in Obama took an early lead which he continued to extend. Amongst the first main victories was Ohio one of the hotly contested states. Then a number of other swing states went to Obama also; even some of the former 'maybe' Republican states went Democrat followed by almost all of the other swing states.
The final signs of victory came when California (a very valuable state), Nevada and the rest of the Western coast all went to Democrat. The landslide victory was then secured when Florida, the state which has been surrounded by controversy in the last two elections finally voted Democrat without the slightest hint of any 'hanging chads'.
Around 11pm American time (5am Berlin time) McCain made his concession speech, which was very honourable and endorsed Obama saying that America needed to work together to solve its problems:
Then at midnight (6am Berlin) Barack Obama made his acceptance speech as the new President of America. The cinema went absolutely wild and it was one hell of a speech:
Click play to view:
As we left, the results were 338 to 156. 270 is needed to win, so this really was a landslide victory.
Today then is a new dawn for the United States.
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