GOT IT!

Well, I have my tickets! Thank you God!

Phew, it was a stressful night.

I received my e-mail from KSC saying 'Sorry, were all out of tickets' this, really bummed my out because I checked ebay to see that some scalper had no less than 25 tickets for sale, all for almost over a grand! That means he won the lottery system 25+ times, I can only imagine how many accounts he used to sign up...

Anyway, but at the bottom of that sad email was two links to two local tour operators who were also given a handful of tickets.

This was God's 'I'll do you one better' moment. Because getting a ticket from one of these tour operators means they'll pick me up and bring me back, as apposed to a ticket from the KSC where I'd have to make my way there myself somehow.

So it was 2am here, or 12noon local time Florida when the tickets went up for sale. I have Nathan on one tour operator, while I check out the other.

At about 11.30 their time the website became REALLLLLLY slow, I mean 5 minutes for a refresh slow.
And came 12noon? I couldn't even access the website, it was totally down for me.

Nathan however managed to get on to the other guys, sort of. Anyway, long story short, we were both sitting there for 40 minutes + just refreshing like mad, Nathan would get a few steps closer with each very hundred refreshes, while I on the other hand was still get 503 time out errors. I was almost in tears. I mean, I had prayed so hard, fasted all day and I was really looking forward to this ticket.

It was then that Nathan read to me, over skype: "Thank you for booking with us. Your booking number is xxxxx"
At first I almost didn't register what he was saying, I had lost all hope. Then I asked him to repeat, and with a non excited 'are you serious?' it was then too, when I hear the welcoming BING from my iPhone indicating an email just arrived.
And it was confirmed, I had my ticket!


The next morning I learned that there were over 60,000 individual IP inquiries of which they were only letting in 250 at a time. Also, on top of that, they reported ebay'ers with bot programs, "SLAMMING" their servers. Those scalpers! As if 4 pages of thousand dollar tickets on ebay isn't already enough.

Anyway, God was good and He delivered, I have my ticket. The pickup is close to my hotel too!

Oh, I also received word from my Hotel in NYC that my reservation is booked, and I'm all ready to go.

Been packing my bags slowly the last few days, I'm almost ready to go! Just 3 exams ahead of me now...goody.

And the wait begins

Well, NASA is being very clever (as they always are I guess) and they are doing their launch ticket sales lottery style. Everyone had last week to register their interest of getting a ticket. And now, for the next two weeks, we all wait for get an email saying we have the opportunity, or we missed out.

Problem being is I leave in about 2 weeks, I hope they can mail my tickets straight to my hotel or something...

Anyway, I need to organize my flights now, time is getting short and I need to make some plans.
So I'll be emailing the travel agent.

I'm going to ask for an open ended flight.
Meaning that I don't have to specify a return date, that is useful in case there are any further delays for Atlantis.

Will keep you posted.