I finally got the daughter of one of my La Leche/Ice skating Mommy's to help (yes, this poor woman has been subjected to me in two totally different circumstances). Her oldest Jade is 17 and we actually decided to have her spend the night, to avoid any traffic issues in the morning. Plus, she got to sleep in!
We thought the babysitter sharing idea would be good because the kids were stuck at the house all day, all the better to have friends to play with. While five is a lot, I told her it's actually easier if they're occupied and playing together. We were concerned as we would not be able to get to them in an emergency. The cleaning lady was there in the morning and we gave Jade the number of one of Daniel's cousins who lives not far to contact if she really had an emergency. We weren't even sure if her parents could come in a pinch but figured she was covered. Hillary brought some lasagna for lunch.
Hillary said that she'd come over with her gang at 8am. I figured, she's been in France 20 years (not all of it in Alsace) and her husband is French (not Alsatian) so we'd be talking 8:30 at the earliest. WRONG! That woman was bang on time. Mine weren't even out of bed! I wasn't even dressed! Hillary was not amused but I got my act together quickly.
We decided to take the tram from Rotonde, to get to Étoile. No problems and it went quickly.
Here is the scene when we arrived. This line quickly got longer. Hillary's daughter Jessica running to join in...
We had to stand in line but it wasn't too long. The movie theater was set up as a processing center, where we showed our passports and invitations. At the other end, we were back outside where buses were lined up and as they filled up, they took off for the Rhénus Sports Hall. I felt like it was some immigration processing center, the way we were herded through.
We took a really long route to get there. We went all the way around the Orangerie park, into the Wacken area of Strasbourg. So creepy and quiet. Someone commented it was like Strasbourg had suffered a nuclear attack. No people, cars or anything!
Check out our police escort en route!
Here are the buses which ferried us in, parked in front of the old ice skating rink. This is also how we left. Notice a guy with a television camera in front. Journalists were swarming all over the place.
Once we got there, we were put in the old ice rink (no ice), just across the street from the Rhénus Sport Center. We were allowed to bring something to drink and eat but were told that it couldn't go beyond this point. We were also told incorrectly that there would be no bathrooms so I waited a half hour for the three stalls available, only to find a huge empty bathroom in the Rhénus.
Here is a helicopter landing nearby. It was like Vietnam during the war, with all the helicopters buzzing overhead!
Me with Hillary. Her husband Benoît is on the left and he made the video at the end of this post.
Waiting to get through security and into the Rhénus. Hillary, Benoît, Jessica and Leah Singer who joined us on the bus.
More security. Not sure if there were more security than journalists or the other way around. I wasn't counting!
In small groups, we were ferried across to go through security.
Security made us take photos with our cameras. This is the one I took with mine. No purses were allowed and only small cameras with attached lenses were permitted. Cell phones oddly had to be turned on and we were only told to turn off the ringers when he appeared.
Since I couldn't bring a purse, I brought a jacket with lots of pockets, which I spent half the time digging through since I couldn't remember which pocket I had put what...
I'm looking very merry, aren't I? We didn't have a choice of where to sit and we were there a long time.
We were by then hungry and Benoît and I stood in line for an hour to get food. All they had were hot dogs and soft pretzels so I took the latter. At one point, they had some music, but I missed it since I was standing in line for food. One French girl was texting that there were too many Americans. I was speaking to Benoît in English so she didn't realize we were French and could understand. I said loudly to Benoît "Can you believe, that girl is texting 'Il y a trop des Américains'. She comes to see the American president and is surprised to see Americans here?!?"
I saw a ton of people I knew but barely got the chance to say hi, even though we were waiting around so long.
He was, of course, late but we all had to be in the hall and seated (not even allowed to go to the bathroom) before he arrived from his visit with Sarko at the Rohan Palace. We couldn't watch his limo pull up.
Finally...he showed up.
Coming on stage with Michelle;
The speech;
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/03/AR2009040301519.html
One of the questions;
http://edition.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/04/03/obama.regrets/#cnnSTCVideo
There were a lot of French high school students there, who obviously didn't understand much. They were happy to see him, as one would with a Rock Star but the experience was a bit lost on them. There was a big group of German college kids from Heidleburg (imagine their long day!) and they understood well.
Leaving wasn't as bad as I thought. We were told to stay seated until our section was called so there wouldn't be a stampede. Once outside, same deal with the buses. We were packed on and shipped out. I saw the former Strasbourg mayor in the parking lot, Fabienne Keller.
The bad news was when we arrived at the tram. While we had no problems taking the tram in, it had been shut down during the day due to protests. We had to walk from Étoile to Les Halles shopping center. Not a huge distance but we were not in the best of shape after all the standing we had done.
I took these around Place Kléber on the way;
Some protester on top of Galleries Lafayette (I didn't stick around to find out what he was protesting).
Here's the story on TF1, if you speak French or just want to look at the pictures;
http://tf1.lci.fr/infos/jt/0,,4323649,00-le-journal-televise-du-3-avril-2009-20h-.html
We had used Hillary and Benoît's car and drove back to our house, where we pigged out on ice cream since by then, our blood sugar levels were rock bottom. We had left at 8:30 and came home at 5:30. A very long day!
This is actually Benoît's video of our Obama experience. He put it together very well with music et al.
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