Lily’s Blog, Dragon Absconded!
Baking Until I Drop

for the guest that is..

So I’ve been invited to a wedding come August when I fully intend to be back home. If I want to come for it I have to start budgeting.
I guess at the bare minimum I come Friday and leave Sunday because leaving Saturday would be waaaaay too much stress for me.

1. Expenses:
   • Air fare – US $600 , might be as much as US $800. Who knows
   • Getting around, ie ground transportation. I can rent a car from the airport (here’s hoping I practise my driving) maybe somewhere between US $150 and US $200. But a weekend special should be less right? Who am I kidding.
   • Lodging, the little slip in card said it was US $88/night + tax so let’s just say US $200.
   • Food, tips? who knows and I shan’t include wedding gift here: US $100

   That brings our total to US $1300.
   I must be overestimating.
   Eeek.

2. But I have about 40 000 AAdvantage miles which should get me a free trip to the USA (even though it sounds like wasting it when I could spend it going to a part of the USA which costs too much for me or even on a slightly longer trip than just a weekend..so maybe I can go somewhere else after? Needs working. But this would bring my trip to about US $500.
3. As per my friend’s (bride) fiance (also my friend), I could room with his friend and thus my lodging would be half what it is and thus my trip would be about US $400. But I don’t know her, so the groom will have to help with this one if I can think of rooming with a total stranger (she is a scifi junkie and a Due South junkie and a Marcus and Babylon 5 junkie and friends with him so she can’t be all that bad).
4. Or I could follow my friend’s (bride) suggestion and bat my eyes at a mutual friend (female!) and get a lift with her to and from the wedding ceremony and the reception since she lives quite close to the hotel. Provided she RSVPs that she’s coming. So this would save on car rentals and my scaring people by the thought of me driving. But I would still need to get from the airport to the hotel and back so I would need to get one of those direct door to door services which cost aboutUS $100 which is half what I budgeted for car rentals. So I think I am down to US $300. I can’t see myself asking for this lift, to and from the airport.
5. Or I could follow this recommendation from friend’s fiance (groom aka friend, this came before the rooming recommendation, but after the transportation recommenation) – bat my eyelashes at same female friend and ask if I can stay with her over the wedding. I would like that but I have no idea how to go about it. It is freaky and scary and I’m not good at asking people for favours and it sounds a bit…well, I don’t want to put people out and I am really not good at asking for things! But that would save all US $200 on lodging, or US $100 if I’m sharing, so I’m down to US $200. But do you offer people some sort of compensation for putting you up and dealing with you? EEK!

So, the end result is US $200, transport from the airport and back and spending money. I think if I’m lucky enough to get put up or driven around I would never ever ask to be picked up from the airport and dropped. That’s so low class..eek. Especially considering the only person who’s ever dropped me to the airport and picked me up was my friend aka the bride and when she started dating the groom, he came along as company once (well twice..a return). And I never did ask because I’m not good at asking these things. She started offering a year ago. And as I said, that was the BRIDE…lol

Hmph. Not sure what’s going to be up.
Oh, and since I will be back home, I will be back into TT currency and just for an average, US $1 = TT $6. Well a bit more but I don’t want to check the decimal places. A fortune!
*sigh*