The flight from Dallas to Paris felt a lot longer than it was. I hadn't gotten a full night's sleep in more than a week, which was not a good a idea. The flight over was far from sold out. Lydia and I sat next to each other on the plane, and we had three seats for the two of us, which was good, but we were so restless about 6 hours in that we wanted to scream. I survived, in no small part due to Lydia giving me a wonderful back massage.
As soon as we got through customs, I went on a desperate search for a "pain au chocolate". (By far my favorite pastry when I lived in France) Its a perfect creation of croissant style bread, with two strategically placed strips of chocolate baked into it. For those of you who haven't had one: Its Heaven!
We all went out last night for a drink at a Scottish pub called Le Wallace. And I was able to drink a Strongbow on tap! It tasted so much better than the cans in the US. We came back and I went to bed around 10, but I woke up a little after 3 AM as if it were morning. I finally got back to sleep at about 5 with a little help from Tylenol PM.
Today has been really great. Speaking French again is so wonderful. Its also really nice for some of my closest friends, who have heard me talk so often about how awesome France is, to get to see it first hand and understand France's charm.
I have often heard that Lyon is like Paris but smaller, but I'm not quite sure I agree. Lyon, for me so far, has a much slower rhythm than Paris, which is nice. We walked the streets for 3 or 4 hours today. We visited a wonderful Cathedral, Le Basilique Fourviere, that sits upon the highest part of Lyon; the view was amazing. We also saw two Roman theatres that were built around 15 B.C. Tonight we are going to the first night of performances at Les Subsistance. I imagine we are going to see 3-5 short shows which will most likely be in several different languages. Its sure to be very interesting.
A bien tot...