Students See President Obama

By Ludo Gioacchini

On Thursday, January 22, I had the chance to experience one of the most incredible and exciting moments of my entire life.

As everybody knows, on that day President Obama came to the University of Kansas to talk about Middle Class Economics.

I didn’t know, at first, that the President was coming to Kansas, and particularly to Lawrence; I found out on Tuesday at noon and at two thirty I was leaving school with some of my classmates to go and wait in line to get tickets.

After three hours of standing in the cold, we finally got the tickets! That evening when I came home I was thinking and thinking, and I couldn’t believe that in two days I would be seeing the President of the United States. It was unbelievable.

Seeing the President was also a chance to really understand the differences in government and politics between the United States and Italy. First, the big difference is that Italy is a Republic and not a Federal Republic like the United States. What this means is that a Republic is formed by different regions and a Federal Republic is formed by states. This difference leads us to the fact that Italian people don’t call the President, President of Italy but President of the Republic. He is the head of state and represents the unity of the nation and he is also the commander-in-chief of the armed forces. He has legislative, executive and judiciary power whereas the American President has only the executive power. The Italian President is elected for seven years and has to be at least 50 years old to be elected. The President of the United States is elected for four years for a maximum of two terms. Another difference is that Italy has a Prime Minister who is the head of the government compared to America’s Secretary of State.

Now that you have a small amount of background information, I’ll tell you about my experience.

Thursday morning we left Eudora at five in the morning because we wanted to be in line as soon as possible. That way we would have good seats, and we would be able to see President Obama up close and personal.We waited three hours in line and at 8:30 the doors opened, and we had to pass through security. There were policemen everywhere, and I didn’t see them but people told me that they were on the roofs of the building and there were policeman and secret service agents with guns.

At that point we were in, only three hours left until the President’s speech. At about 11, people started to get very excited, including me. People, who until that moment, were sitting on the ground began to get up and ready their phones to take pictures of an event that would probably never happen again.

At 11:30, he was supposed to show up and every time there was a small, tiny movement people picked up their phones or cameras ready to take pictures.

I was just as excited, but at the same time I was nervous because I was going to see the President of the United States.

Finally at after what seemed like an eternity he came out. My heart was beating so fast, my legs were feeling so weak, and I couldn’t stop looking up there at him on the stage.

The audience was going crazy; people were screaming while simultaneously taking as many pictures and videos as they could. I was trying to do the same thing but without any results since I was a short person in a sea of tall bodies. Fortunately, a guy made some room, so I was able to see the President for the entire time.

I  do not think there enough words that I can use to explain the way I was feeling when I was standing there listening to him speak. I think it is a wonderful experience for everyone to have but especially for someone, like me, from another country. It was an incredible opportunity to learn new aspects of American culture that I did not know before and to learn more about American politics.

So, even though at the end of it all we were all exhausted from waking up at five in the morning and standing around for about seven hours, it was a wonderful experience that I may never get to experience again and it was totally worth the time!