May 20 - 22: Paris, again.  In our beginning is our end: we return to this city almost eight months after the origin of our trip.  The French Franc and Lionel Jospin are gone; the Euro and torn Le Pen posters have surfaced.  Our plane is in late, and we collapse in the hotel, exhausted. 

In the morning we rediscover the glories of a Parisian spring.  After weeks of temperatures in the nineties, Paris is cool and bright.  We saunter through the streets of the Latin Quarter.  Although it is a Monday morning, the city is quiet.  At first we think that this is just in contrast to the crowds and bustle of Asia.  Eventually we realize it is a holiday.  What clues us in is that pretty much everything is closed. 

We don’t do much; up to Rue Moufftard for crepes and cider, which are excellent.  In a wonderful surprise, Thor, a friend from Kellogg, happens to be in Paris and meets us for dinner.  We go to a family-style restaurant in Ile St Louis, luckily Thor speaks French, so our Chinese ordering patterns of struggle and submit are broken.  Thor has been working in Paris for several months; it sounds good, but he’s been working like a dog, or, as he puts it, like an MBA in a declining economy.  Both give us shivers.

In the morning Heather heads to a cooking school.  It’s one of the best she has done: the chef worked at Cordon Blue for years before finding out that he could make more money giving classes to suckers, er tourists.  The class, which is held in a private apartment, consists of only four participants and the chef.  They prepare a fabulous meal of bass a la Provencal, three-cheese soufflé, white asparagus with hollandaise and strawberry-orange tart, all of course supplemented and made more delicious by the several bottles of wine.

I hit the museums we missed last time around.  First is the Musee Rodin, and particularly the gardens: it’s stunning.  Not so much for The Thinker, but The Gates of Hell, and the statue of Victor Hugo.  I wander around the gardens for some time.  In the afternoon I head to the Musee d’Orsay.  At first the crowds are disturbing, but I reach into my backpack and pull out my Nomad (a digital walkman).  The headphones quickly drown out the crowd’s chatter.  This also adds an entirely new dimension to the museum: especially the Courbert room: when one approaches L’Origine du Monde while listening to a mix of White Stripes and Kristen Hersh, it’s different.  Trust me.  I don’t think I will ever go to a museum without it again.

At dinner that night we take a recommendation from Heather’s chef and have a terrific meal at a traditional brassiere.  At its end, we compare notes: we have each picked our top 20 activities or places on the trip (HERE).  Unsurprisingly, most of them match.  Walking through the streets back to the hotel we float on the memories of the past seven months.

In the morning we head to the airport.  Our thoughts now are of our return to the States and the decisions that lie before us, including finding jobs (and if you have any ideas, let us know), but also the fun of reacquainting with family and friends again, and seeing if Oakley remembers us.  Luckily, my post-partum depression will be eased by watching all 52 games of the World Cup.  The plane ride is long; we touch down at Dulles in the early evening. 

And so it ends: 26 weeks of travel, 180 nights away from US soil, 95 different rooms where our average stay is just under 2 nights.  Thirteen countries, connected by a total of 43 planes, 21 boats, 14 buses, 13 cars, and 3 trains.  We step out into the American night and breathe deeply. 

In our end is our beginning.