On Nov. 5, less than three months ago, I stood in a hotel lobby in North Carolina’s capitol, Raleigh, when it was announced that a Barack Obama would become America’s president No. 44. I and my Godfather, who has fat ties in the N.C. Democratic Party, were celebrating the election, which undoubtedly will go down as one of the biggest, if not the biggest in U.S. History. The feeling during that election night was so vivid and…emotional… that I told him I’d love to go to the inauguration. He looked at me as we were finishing our drinks with the new N.C. Governor and said, “I’ll see what I can do.” In December he called and said he thought he had me covered. I thought he was joking and was flat broke, so I told people of the great score, but that I probably wouldn’t be able to afford to go.

On Tuesday, January 13, someone told me that I could not afford NOT to go and got me the airline ticket. (Thank you benefactor, I will always owe you!)

Already in Amsterdam, where I was connecting to New York, Obama’s presence is in the air. Some people wore Obama ’08 sweaters and the guys I end up sitting with on row 15, two Germans who are in the music industry, are headed over to observe the historical event and do some business. They will celebrate in Manhattan at some of the millions upon millions of parties this country will throw on January 20, 2009. They get jealous when they hear that I have tickets to the actual event, and will head down to Washington D.C. on Sunday. At this point, it’s still unrealistic that I am the girl with a ticket to the Obama Inauguration.