Plane Tickets Purchased

I went in to the travel office last week and talked about flight options. I was thrilled because since the first time I looked at flights (two months ago), ticket prices have dropped about $400! The agent I talked to said he would normally tell a student to buy tickets ASAP, but this year, because of the economy, he said it might be worth it to wait and see if prices drop a little. I asked, “How long should I wait?”

He told me it shouldn’t be too long, but waiting or not could be a gamble. “Let’s let the weekend pass by and meet at the beginning of next week.”

That’s what we did and I met with him this morning right after I got out of class. Prices had only dropped a couple dollars, but I didn’t want to put off buying tickets.

Seriously looking at tickets now, the cheapest set he found had me flying into and leaving London from two different airports.

“It’ll cost more if you want to use the same airport,” he told me.

“How much more?” I asked.

“Let’s see.” We looked and it was only two dollars more, haha! Yeah, I figured for two dollars I’d use the same airport, Heathrow International.


This is what my flight plan looks like. It’s not pretty, but it was the cheapest.

June 22, 2009
Depart from Portland (PDX) @ 6:00AM PDT (Pacific Daylight Time)
Arrive in New York (JFK) @ 1:59PM EDT (Eastern Daylight Time)
Depart from New York (JFK) @ 6:00PM EDT
June 23, 2009
Arrive in London (LHR) @ 7:05AM BST (British Summer Time)

August 10, 2009
Leave from London (LHR) @ 6:30AM BST
Arrive in Amsterdam (AMS) @ 8:55AM CEST (Central European Summer Time)
Depart from Amsterdam (AMS) @ 10:30AM CEST
Arrive in Portland (PDX) @ 12:05PM PDT.

I realize with all the time zone changes that’s a little confusing, so I tried to turn it all into PDT to make it a tad easier:

June 22, 2009
Depart from Portland (PDX) @ 6:00AM PDT (Pacific Daylight Time)
Arrive in New York (JFK) @ 10:59AM PDT
Depart from New York (JFK) @ 3:00PM PDT
Arrive in London (LHR) @ 11:05PM PDT

August 9, 2009
Leave from London (LHR) @ 10:30PM PDT
Arrive in Amsterdam (AMS) @ 11:55PM PDT
August 10, 2009
Depart from Amsterdam (AMS) @ 1:30AM PDT
Arrive in Portland (PDX) @ 12:05PM PDT.

So my tickets are now bought, I’m GOING to London! Even if the world ends and somehow study abroad is canceled, I’m going to London!

My next task after getting tickets bought was getting my International Student ID Card (ISIC). That didn’t take too long. I almost got to hold on to it too! They gave it to me and I started to leave, then another person at the desk was like, “wait! You can’t keep that yet.”

“Oh, okay,” so I handed it back. “When do I get to keep it?”

“After you’ve paid all of your program fees.” That’s fine. I plan on doing that as soon as I know what the final balance is. I’ve already put in my first and second payments and I won’t found out what the final payments are going to be until March 13th.

I also registered for my classes today.

IAS 201R British Monuments (1 credit hour)
ENGL 300R Landscape, Mind, and Literature (3 credit hours)
EUROP 336R History of England (3 credit hours): Roman rule to the present.

My checklist is getting smaller and small, and right now there’s really nothing I can do other than wait. I need to figure out how I’m going to get from the airport to the BYU center, and vice versa, but I think that’s going to be discussed in our pre-departure class, so in the mean time I’m putting it out of my mind.

I don't think I'll have anything new to post before March 4th after my pre-departure class. Maybe I'll learn something new, and of course I'll tell you about it! So, until then, cheerio!