A Sentimental Journey of London and Paris, and nearly Rome too

 In the summers of 2018 and 2019, I had the opportunity to travel to London and Paris respectively. The initial trip, London, was entirely a surprise. A family friend called my mom and asked if I would like to take her spot in her family's trip to England. The five day trip was all expenses paid except for my passport and spending money. While this sounds like a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, I was actually hesitant to go. I had never been outside of the United States, and I am not a fan of flying, specifically over the ocean for seven hours. Obviously, I ended up going, and I had a really good time. The highlights of the trip were seeing "Agatha Christie's The Mousetrap"(The longest running show in London), and the Tower of London. The following year, they invited me to go to Paris with them. As someone who had wanted to see the "City of Lights" since I was in fourth grade, I was over the top excited. The sights there were as significant. The best part of the trip was seeing the Eiffel Tower at night from the Seine river. Everyone around me was in awe, and there wasn't a person in sight without their phone out, taking pictures. AS a Side note, taking pictures of the Eiffel Tower at night is actually illegal because the city of Paris has it copyrighted, but it is too hard to enforce the rule, so everyone takes pictures anyway. Then, as the boat was traveling up the Seine, everyone gasped. There was a huge orange full moon arched from one side of the river to the other.  We spent five days in France, and it was an experience that I'll never forget. At that point, I would have thought that my days of traveling internationally with most expenses paid would have been over, but I was wrong. Once again, our friends invited me to go with them, this time to Rome. The Trevi Fountain, the Vatican, and the Colosseum were all on the itinerary of things to do. We were supposed to go in June 2020. Of course, as we know all too well, COVID-19 hit the United States in spring 2020, the borders shut down, and Italy became the epicenter of the disease. The trip was cancelled, and everyone buckled down to hopefully fight off the disease. You all know the rest. Stay safe and stay healthy!