The only good thing about packing

...is that it means vacation is really soon.

FAQ: Is it hard to get tickets to the Olympics?

I think the tickets question is a close second to the "how long will it take to get there" question. 

No, it is not difficult to get tickets. It just takes a lot of planning ahead, and a little luck. CoSport is the official ticket seller for the US. Way back in April of 2007, we chose the events we would like to see and submitted the info to CoSport. This was actually the second phase of requesting tickets. We missed phase one.

Several months later, CoSport emailed me to let me know what tickets we got. While we only got 40% of the tickets we requested, we were still happy to get them at all. (Things we didn't get: swimming, diving, and the illustrious Opening Ceremony.)

And no, the tickets weren't expensive either. Some were less than $10.

Good News!

The hostel emailed to say they have a room for us! They also said, "Please don't worried about it." So we won't. :)

Five more days!

FAQ: How long will it take to get there?

If I had a nickel for every time someone has asked how long it will take to get to China... I would probably have at least two dollars. Maybe even three.

My answer to each person who asks is something along the lines of "I don't want to think about it." But just for you, I AM going to think about it. This involves math, and we all know that's not my strong suit, but I'll give it a try.

Beijing is 12 hours ahead of Indianapolis (15 hours ahead of Seattle).

My flight leaves Indy at 5:10 pm on Sunday. We arrive in Beijing at 9:40 am on Tuesday. If I am calculating correctly and accounting for the time difference, that is 28.5 hours. Luckily, not quite all of it is in the air.

Indy to LA: 5 hours, 30 minutes (Seattle to LA: 2 hours 40 minutes)

LA to Seoul: 13 hours, 30 minutes

Seoul to Beijing: 2 hours, 5 minutes

That's 21 hours and 5 minutes of air time for me, and 18 hours and 15 minutes for Holly.

Now you understand why I didn't want to think about it.

Bump in the road?

Below is an excerpt from an email I received today from our hostel in Beijing. We made this reservation more than a year ago. Hmm. Might be sleeping on street:

Thank you for your reservation in our hotel during Olympics.

According to our estimation about the rooms customers have reserved during Olympics, probably we won’t have enough rooms for the reservation. But we’ll try our best to arrange the room you have reserved from our hotel,and to protect customers’benefits,we will associate other hotels in Beijing to solve this problem.Now we need to confirm that if you will come to our hotel on time.Please tell us before 25th of July, 2008.

According to the rules of the HOSTELWORLD ,we promise that the condition and service will not be changed.

Welcome to Beijing to watch the Olympics. Wish you have a good travel.

Looking forward to your reply.

Give our best wishes.

Olympic Fanfare in Indiana

Tonight, a few friends and I went to Symphony on the Prairie. The theme was music from sports-related movies, but this was the big finale. Seriously, if this doesn't get you excited about the Olympics, nothing will!

Two weeks till we leave!

Look what came today!

Our event tickets!