Well, it was a trial, but I bought the first set of plane tickets - it is a bit late, so there are not many seats remaining and they are going fast. As I described before, I use Kayak.com to check general rates and find the most likely carrier with the best rate.
I found some sort of reasonable tickets, but when I went to the airline website, it was showing a layover time of 20 or more hours! In other words, we would leave home on Tuesday evening and arrive in Paris on Thursday morning - with the 20 hour layover somewhere in the states. So I tried another carrier and by the time I entered all info, the price had jumped by $1000 for the two tickets - so... on to carrier 3.
I got tickets on Continental for a sort of reasonable price, booked them without selecting seats so I could get the transaction done before losing the price. Then I went back to select seats and found none available (except for the exit row seats, which are not assigned until check-in).
I know the airlines overbook flights, just like hotels overbook to compensate for no-shows. Anyway, they sold me the tickets, arriving on September 1, which is better than the original itinerary I looked at that would have me arriving on Sept. 2 after the 20 hour layover! We'll see what actually happens. I grabbed seats on the return flights then as well.
I also heard from my contact for my program at ESC and started to complete the application - I need to gather a few bits of information yet and will send that back tomorrow. I need a passport type photo for the application, so that is next on my list.
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