Paris, the last

Alright. It's time to make my last official entry related to specific trip happenings. I'm back safe in Canada now and it's nice to be home, where things are familiar and I can see all the family/friends I've been wanting to see. At the same time, part of me misses Europe already, misses the historical wealth of everywhere we visited, the exploration of new, often unfamiliar cultures, misses a whole bunch of little things like kinds of cheese, certain grocery stores, that café just down the street from our hostel. I'm already dreaming and scheming about the next trip (which won't be for a while, but hopefully sooner rather than later) - what can I say? I love to travel.

Here's a summary of the rest of our last day in Paris:

After the perfection of the Sacre Coeur picnic, Max and I had one final thing we had to do to make our Paris trip complete (and completely perfect). Once dusk began to fall, we hopped on the Métro one last time and made our way to the Eiffel Tower. Since early on in the week our plan had been to finish off the last leg of the trip with a bird's eye view of Paris at night, so that's exactly what we did. The line was long for the elevators, but once we stepped out and looked over the lights of the city from over 300m in the air, I didn't regret one moment of the sweaty sardine-can ride up to the top. Spread out below us, the streets formed a glowing work of art cut by illuminated rivers, their waters plied by brightly-lit boats that looked like shooting stars from our high perch. To make it all just that much more wonderful, the moon was almost full and it played peek-a-boo with clouds to paint us a dramatic night sky that crowned the sleepy city below.

Once we'd had our fill of the view, I waved a last goodbye to beautiful Paris and we again braved the crushing crowds to get back to the earth (we were thankfully able to take the steps down for the last part of the journey, which gave us an amazing view of the interior of the tower - it really is gorgeous in a sculptural, industrial way). On the way back to the hostel we both got some crepes from a streetside stand - mine was nutella and couldn't have been more delicious.

Then it was time to pack our backpacks one last time, check to see if any soccer was on, and go to bed. The next morning we got our last Parisian breakfast (I savoured the hot chocolate mightily), caught a train out to Charles de Gaulle airport and caught the plane that was to bring us home. The trip was long but mostly uneventful - an extended stopover in Montréal was a bit of a nuisance, but finally, after almost 15 hours of travel (well, 15 hours and seven weeks of travel, I suppose) we walked into the waiting arms of our happy parents and were each driven home.

And so the trip has ended, and what a voyage it was! Now that I'm back I can say without superstition that it went as close to perfectly as one could ever wish - we experienced no theft, our hostel roommates were all amazing (and some will hopefully become future friends), the Eurail pass worked well (with only that one Barcelona hitch, and even that was minor), and we both got back home in one piece and full to the brim with memories and stories to tell. I've decided that I can honestly say the trip changed my life, leaving me a more confident person, one richer in experience and ready to keep living life like I lived it on the road - fully and completely.

I suppose that should be the end of this blog, but I still have a few entries in me, one in particular about which French stereotypes actually exist, as well as another about how I fell in love with Paris. Feel free to stay tuned for those - they should be up in the coming week. After that there'll be a month's haitus, but then I'll begin posting photos in smallish batches - remember, drop me an email if you want to be notified when the pictures start to appear (jbbartram@gmail.com).

Thanks to everyone who read this blog - I had a great time writing it and I hope you found reading it equally enjoyable.

Ciao!