And the winner is…

Me! I love the Oscars. They are my favorite television event of the year. So, for a while, I had been wandering how I was going to watch this year's. Then, about a week ago, I got an invitation on Facebook to an Oscar-watching at an ex-pat restaurant, Red, Hot & Blues. I was psyched. I invited my friends who might be interested and, lucky for me, my friend Kari joined me. Now, this is live, which means that the show started at 2am. Yep. 2 A. M. – that's in the morning. We had planned to meet at 11:30pm but then Kari sent me a text suggesting we go see Frost/Nixon earlier in the evening. I was happy to go; I wasn't looking forward to leaving my flat at 11pm. So, we met, we watched the movie – nice use of historical event to parallel the current feelings of the country – and then walked around a bit. At midnight, we headed to the restaurant. People were trickling out – those normal people who were there for the jazz earlier in the evening – and trickling in – those crazy people who were planning to sit up all night watching the Oscars. At about 1am, they turned the sound on and we got to see the German coverage of the red carpet. At 2am, it switched to the American coverage of the red carpet. Finally, I think at 2:30 am, the show started. We were ready. Ballots in hand, marked with our favorites. We were sitting next to a group of Americans so there was a lot of chatting, questions about movies we were unfamiliar with, etc. When the Oscars started, there was a hush in the room. I had high expectations for Hugh Jackman – I had seen him host the Tony's so I knew he could deliver, and he did. Great opening. We continued to enjoy the show, especially seeing past winners as a group present the acting awards. Slumdog Millionaire was the local crowd favorite. Since neither of us have seen it yet, Kari and I had a hard time getting too excited about it. We as a whole, were also disappointed in the In memoriam segment – we couldn't read the text so we weren't sure who we were remembering, plus, they did not have Heath Ledger or we all missed it. As soon as the Best Picture was announced we left, not even waiting for the speech. The bill was paid and we were out the door, Kari and I at least. We went our groggy separate ways at the metro, mixing in with the morning commuters…it was 6am. As I walked from the tram stop to my flat half an hour later, I noticed that the sky was beginning to lighten. I climbed the stairs, changed into my PJs and crawled into bed, setting the alarm for 10am (I do have work to do today and expect to go to bed early tonight). And couldn't go to sleep. Luckily, I did eventually and got a few hours of shut eye. I do not remember the last time I did an all-nighter. I mean, I've stayed up to write papers but got to bed around 4am. The last time, that I remember, was freshman year of college when we camped out for football tickets. I'm glad I did it. I missed the other major American, stay up all night events (the election since I was still in the US, and the Super Bowl) so I felt that I had to do this at least once in my life. Plus, it was the Oscars! Oh, and I was delighted to see Kate Winslet win.