Les Silhouettes de Sophie : Le début

Hello!

I am back!

So these past two weeks have gone by too quickly. I haven't posted because I was debating if I was even going to do this blog, but I have decided to do it and that is that! Welcome back to Les Silhouettes de Sophie. Anyways, in the past two weeks I have had a LOT of firsts:

1. First solo airplane flight: I flew to Washington D.C. to meet my best friend and her family.

2. First time in Washington D.C. (and thus first time seeing the White House is real life--granted from a moving car--rather than pictures)

3. First time flying transatlantic (with said best friend to London--also first time being messed up by an airline as she had to move up to a different cabin because of a "seat malfunction" that frankly didn't really exist)

4. First time out of the country

5. First time in Europe

6. First time in London

7. First time booking a hotel on my own

8. First time in Paris (Eiffel Tower, yay!)

9. First time in Lyon

Oh yes, and:

10. First time with jet lag

As you can see it has completely crazy, and looking back on it, I almost can't believe it has all happened. Addie and I maintain through all of this that it doesn't feel "real". It feels like a dream, something we have dreamed a long time ago but never really imagined would be staring us straight in the face. In London and Paris the world felt so unfamiliar--like I was floating away from myself. So I would force myself to be so in-the-moment that life seemed normal. Like it was normal to be laying in the grass at le Jardin des tuileries.

The being away from home bit, that part no one really talks about in the pictures or blogs, bit me in the butt a few times as well. Sometimes, you feel lonely even with your best friend by your side. You can't communicate because wifi is horrendous or the time difference is 9 hours and everyone you know is asleep. Your real world seems so far away. So you might silently cry for 20 minutes in your hostel room in Lyon or something like that but you can feel yourself changing. Your mind expanding. A problem comes up and voilà, you have to tackle it (like navigating the Paris metro to get to Notre Dame or going through security on the train with 1000lbs of luggage). Finally, even if the day of you were hysterically laughing along the Thames because you couldn't sleep on the plane, the day after, the magnificence of the sights you have seen coming rolling back to you in prettier pictures.

The Eiffel Tower (and the view from it) are magnificent in person. The Notre Dame and the Palais de Louvre (with a nice flutist), left us feeling serene. In London, we ate at a pub, walked the streets of in the rain and listened to the steel drums, saw the brightly-colored dancers at the Nottingham Carnival. In D.C, we saw the Lincoln Memorial in the sweltering heat and I saw my first firefly. Which was pretty exciting for me. Then I hopped on a train after 3 days in DC, 2 days in London and 24 hours in Paris and ended up in Lyon. I will post more about my first week here soon!

Here are some fun pictures of us :)

A church right by our hotel in London