For Duanesburg's Monica Arias Miranda, being part of Obama's historic inauguration is worth all the hassles.

"In my lifetime, in this country, I have never experienced anything like this," said Miranda, a fiscal analyst who works for the Assembly's Ways and Means Committee.

The 38-year-old Costa Rican immigrant became a citizen in May — in time to cast her first-ever vote for Obama.

"This is history in my lifetime," Miranda said, moments after leaving an hour-long line to pick up tickets for today's ceremony.

She described the scene with words like "hectic" and "crazy," but "when that picture is posted on the Internet, and it's in some history book ... we can say we were there."

"The lines, those are just for a couple of hours, but this memory will last a lifetime," Miranda said.

Miranda began her journey to Washington at 5 a.m. Sunday, making the 370-mile drive south with two friends who were part of the Albany campaign for Obama. Miranda was treasurer for the local campaign.

A 2 p.m. arrival Sunday didn't deter her group from heading to the star-studded "We Are One" concert at the Lincoln Memorial. They zipped from event to event on Monday, finally ending with a New York State Democratic Party reception at the Smithsonian Institute.

Miranda said the day left her with a natural high, buoyed by the excitement of crowds near the Capitol.

"The atmosphere is amazing," Miranda said. "Everybody is just so excited; everybody is talking about the future."

That same enthusiasm led 10-year-old Martha Donnelly of Lake Luzerne to write her congresswoman, Rep. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-Greenport, asking for tickets to the swearing-in ceremony. Martha's handwritten plea to Gillibrand — which included a promise to "love you so much" in exchange — paid off when the congresswoman gave the fifth-grader two tickets to the ceremony. Using campaign funds, Gillibrand also paid for airfare and lodging for Martha and her mother, Patricia Mannix.

The pair arrived in Washington midday on Monday, and met Gillibrand a few hours later.

Martha said she wanted to watch Obama take the oath of office because "he will be the first black president — and I've never been to an inauguration before."

Mannix, a self-described political junkie and second-grade teacher in Warrensburg, promised her class she would bring back pictures and firsthand stories of the ceremony from her perch on the Capitol grounds.

Anton Konev, a 25-year-old legislative assistant to Democratic Assemblyman Peter Rivera, was an early campaigner for Obama in Albany. As he walked through Washington on Monday past vendors selling buttons, bags and banners emblazoned with the president-elect's picture, Konev was struck by the obstacles Obama has overcome.

"The crowds are so excited," Konev said. "Everybody is really renewed with hope ... to get our country on the right track, and to celebrate this start of a new era."

Konev remembers canvassing in Albany in late 2007 with petitions to get Obama's name on the ballot. "We were knocking on doors that were not particularly friendly to us," he said. For Konev, a Russian immigrant who became a citizen in 2001, witnessing Obama's inauguration is the "realization of a dream."

"To see a son of (an immigrant) become president of the United States, it really is very emotionally moving," he said.

Gov. David Paterson said the inauguration is drawing so many revelers from the Empire State — including some who have never been to Washington — because of Obama's "amazing ability to win the presidency when not many Americans thought that was possible."

Millions of Americans, Paterson added, want to watch the nation's first black president take office.

"Even people who didn't vote for Barack Obama — even people who don't believe in his policies — are celebrating the fact that this country has really stepped in front ... of most countries in the world by having a president who is not reflective of the majority of the population" in terms of his ethnicity, Paterson said. "That is astounding."