“America is my country and Paris is my hometown.” Gertrude Stein

View From D'Orsay Museum
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Tomorrow is our last full day in Paris. We have to leave for the airport at 5:30 AM Sunday morning. Our flight leaves at 10 AM, and about eight hours later, arrives in Detroit at 1 PM.

Yesterday and today we had our two day museum passes, which were great because we didn't have to deal with standing in line for tickets. We covered the must-see's at the Louvre and the D'Orsay (which was by far my favorite museum). Then today we visited the Picasso Museum, the L'Orangerie (to see Monet's "Waterlilies") and dragged ourselves up 250+ steps to the top of the Arc de Triumph.

D'Orsay
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Needless to say, I can't feel my legs anymore! I've never walked so much in my life.

Tomorrow we are going to a wine & cheese tasting lunch that we booked a few days ago, so that we can go back home (hopefully) slightly more knowledgeable about what we've been drinking and eating over the past eleven days. I'm going to see if I can track down this infamous chocolate shop I've been hearing about and have a little box sent to the MIL (mother in law). We've saved our one big splurge dinner for the last night--so many things on the menu at cafes (i.e, tartare everything!) have intimidated me that I've stuck to eating only pastas and salads (which I paid for today by going into a massive protein deficient daze.) But I'm interested to see what all this fuss is about at these famous bistros and brasseries that everyone swoons over. We then have to call it a semi-early night so that we can come back and pack everything up and be ready to go out the door when we wake up Sunday morning.

View From D'Orsay Museum
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Although homesick, it's far tougher to leave than I thought it would be--as soon as I was starting to get the hang of things, it's time to go. :-( Paris is an amazing place for introspection and contemplating next moves. The stresses and anxieties back home seem to temporarily vanish. Personally, I think it's because it's impossible to feel stressed out in Paris, like there are traces of Xanax in the drinking water or something. But, instead of bracing myself for the moment I get off that plane and have to face reality again, it's something I'm looking forward to. I've had so much time to think about how I should (and shouldn't) be handling things and now I'm not nearly as worried about the actual act of following through and changing them.

Louvre
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So many people told me that Paris, being the "city of love", isn't the same if you visit without your significant other. And I will agree, this place is chock full of couples wandering around in this blissful state of complete happiness--like they're the only two people in existence and are living up every minute of being in one of the most amazing places on Earth. So yes, sometimes this made me throw up a little in my mouth. (Haha.) And other times I just missed that Bry wasn't there to experience all of this with me.

Louvre
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But, as hokey as this will sound, I say that as long as you come to Paris with someone that you love--even if that means it's a family member or a close friend--then you can't not have a fabulous experience. I'm so grateful to have had all of this time to spend with my mom and get to know her even better. (Plus, very few people aside from her can last through such intense art museum hopping.) It's a trip that I never in any sort of distant future could have been able to go on without her generously offering to fund it. I'm still wracking my brain as to what to get her as a thank you gift, but am completely clueless. How do you really, fully thank someone for giving you something like this?

Louvre
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So it's au revoir to Paris--but it's a goal of mine that it won't be too long before I'm here again. :-)