It has never been cooler to be an American in Hannover. Or, actually, to be one particular American in Hannover.
No, sorry, it's not me.
President Obama has come to visit our humble city for two days, and he is all the rage.
He's here for the opening of the trade fair for industrial technology. Every year there's a partner country, and it's customary for that country's leader to open the fair along with Angela Merkel. Previous famous guests for this expo have been Narendra Modi and Vladimir Putin (occasion of the famous topless protest). This year, the partner country is the USA and O-bams came to town.
Hannover is all abuzz about the visit. News blogs have up to the minute coverage of what Obama is eating, where he is sleeping, what his shoes look like. Police are everywhere, blocking off streets. Sections of the city were closed off so that the motorcade could drive through, with Obama's special armored limo shipped from the USA called 'The Beast'. Anyone who wanted to come or go from the neighborhood surrounding Hannover's conference center had to pre-register with the police. If you were planning to stand at your window give The Beast a wave, forget it. Waving through windows is prohibited. Keep your hands to yourself.
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| The Beast |
It's not the first time that I've hung around in the same obscure town as Obama. Air Force One was parked (is that the word? do planes park?) in Hilo, Hawaii when Brian and I were there in 2009. We drove out to the airport to see, and guards waved us on when we tried to stop. Obama flew out on the same night we did. All the air space surrounding Honolulu was closed and we almost missed our plane to Minneapolis due to the delay. It was the only time I have run full speed through a near-empty airport just like in the movies, to find the wonderful flight attendants holding the plane for us. Thank you, Hawaiian Airlines.
Our international school was not to be left out of the excitement. The fourth graders wrote letters asking Obama to visit (he didn't, sorry kids), and we hired two security guards to stand by the school gate and protect us against those crazy America-haters that would surely be attacking. I saw the guards on Monday afternoon, looking chilly and watching over a handful of German and Japanese kids on the playground. Rumor has it there were several policemen in the male teachers' bathroom as well. Maybe they were scoping it out in case The Beast had to pull over somewhere so the president could pee.
Obama left Hannover last night, and our town's star-struck brush with the world's most powerful man is over. After all the security in Hannover, I can see how Europeans might think of the USA as a violent police state. They must imagine Washington DC as a city in a state of permanent lock-down. I hope they know that one of our freedoms, as Americans, is to wave whenever we like.
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