Matt Zeitlin: Impetuous Young Whippersnapper

Yeah, I’m going to be in Grant Park tomorrow night.

The last time I was at a communal celebration was in Vienna for the Euro Cup final. That morning, my friends and I decided, somewhat randomly, to root for Spain over Germany. By the afternoon, we were decked out in Spanish flags and scarves. We painted our faces red and yellow and were singing songs with the drunken, Spanish fans. We watched the game on a huge TV, screaming and dancing for 90 minutes. After Spain won, we continued the dancing and singing in the official fan zone, shimmied our way to Stephansplautz, and after a burger-and-beer pitstop at McDonalds, continued singing and dancing well into the early morning hours. We were matching, if not surpassing, the median Spanish fan in revelry* And this was for a team that we had only luckily picked that morning.

Needless to say, I will be much more excited for the Obama rally. But my little story of Vienna should give you an idea for just how pumped I am.

*I should pass along an anecdote that really captures just how silly we were being that day. While we were pounding back .52 € beers on a street corner and yelling at German fans in their convertible party bus from Munich, a group of East Asian tourists asked to take a picture with us. They must have mistaken our drunken chants of “Alemania a pies!” and “Que Viva Espana!” for something that real Spanish people actually do.