The Final Day: A Fitting End

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Well. This is it. The last stop on our grand adventure. One more night in Paris before we head home to Canada.

Are we ready to go back? Yes and no. We've been away for two months, but there's a few years worth of things we haven't seen yet.

Yet. I'll be back soon enough, and I'm going to make sure of it too...

So how did our last day go? Well, we probably couldn't have asked for a more fitting conclusion to our European travels.

It actually started the day before in the train station in Amsterdam where it took us about two hours to get reservations for the trip to Paris.... yeah TWO HOURS! It was insane! You took a number, and you waited... FOREVER! It must not be that unusual because no one looked all that upset. We were a little disappointed that it cost us a couple of hours of wandering time in Amsterdam, but since we'd had two months of wandering time up to that point, it wasn't that big a deal. We just happened to be hungry, that's all.

So on our last day in Europe, we set out for Paris. Our first train took us to Brussels once again, which was now the fifth time we'd stopped there, not to mention the place where our European adventure really began. We had just enough time to eat a sandwich and drink one more cheap Belgian beer before boarding the high speed Thalys to Paris, our last train.

We didn't really have any definite plans for our evening in Paris, but as luck would have it, someone else decided that for us. On the train back to Paris, we were befriended by An, a Belgian living in Paris who'd just begun her career as an architect. It didn't take long before she invited us both out to a going away party for one of her co-workers. And it didn't take long for me to accept that invitation on our behalf.

It wasn't until later that Neil suggested that it might be weird for two strange kids from Canada to show up at an office function. But, again, it didn't take long to realize that we didn't care, and it was a chance for a last real adventure. Plus we were invited, so it was all good. And with that brief doubt behind us (our at least behind me anyway) we were free to wind down our last hours in Paris before meeting An and her coworkers.

We decided to go to the Mussee d'Orsay, since it was an art gallery we'd heard a fair bit about, and it was a much more manageable size than the Louvre. We walked there from our centrally located hostel, and walked along the banks of the Seine while the sun was getting low in the sky, which made for a wonderfully fitting ambiance.

We stopped part way along to sit on a wall to fill our empty stomachs with a bottle of Argentinian wine given to us by a Brazilian guy we shared a room with in Amsterdam. It left us nicely buzzed for our self-guided museum tour.

Which was free! It seems by some magical (maybe ridiculous) stroke of luck, the Musee d'Orsay is free for anyone under 25 on Thursdays, or at least on the last Thursday of the month, which it just so happened to be. We really didn't ask to many questions about it...

The Musee d'Orsay is a former train station that's been converted into an art gallery (mostly impressionist with a lot of sculptures), so there's grand ceilings, lot's of open space, and lot's of natural light. There's a huge glass clock on the top floor that you can look through and see the Parisian skyline out to Montmartre and Sacre Couer. With the light from the setting sun, it was quite the sight....

... In fact, it was the kind of sight that made me wish I hadn't chosen to leave my camera in the hostel.

Dammit.

The museum kept us occupied for a couple of hours, and the art was really good. The buzz from the wine also seemed to leave us more insightful, and I think we really got the most out of our museum experience.

It grew time to leave, and we were also starving at this point, so we headed out to the metro and got off at the stop we were instructed to and searched for some quick eats. It happened to be the kind of neighborhood that offered us some good options. We settled on a place that served Turkish food. It was hearty food that was quite tasty. Actually, we were really surprised at how much Turkish food and how many Turkish people there are scattered around Europe. It's not really a prominent culture back home, and it was a neat surprise, since the food from said culture provided sustenance at numerous points in our trip. Mmmmm... Doner Kababs....

After our dinner, we set out to find Pere Populaire, the bar where An and her coworkers were going to be. This proved to be a moderate challenge, since An wasn't able to give us the exact address, just a metro stop and the name of the establishment. She also gave us her phone number just in case, but we decided to pursue means that didn't require finding a payphone and change for a call. First we wandered, then we asked at a convenience store, and finally we asked the attendant at the metro station. She hadn't heard of it, but suggested a direction for us to walk in. Unfortunately, Neil and I translated slightly different instructions from the french attendant, but while we tried to figure out what she said exactly, we walked right to it. Pretty slick.

It was a pretty cool place, filled with young people our age or thereabouts playing music that we liked. We met up with An, and found that her coworkers were mostly students on internships from Universities all over Europe. And because they have people from all over Europe, the working language of the place they work at is English, so we had a great time! The beer flowed, and so did the conversation. It was really cool hanging out with so many people from so many different places and talking about where we'd been and what we'd done.

We stayed there until just after midnight. Since they had to work the next day, they all headed home and we headed back to our hostel with feeling almost at home in this city and on this continent thanks to the people that we'd met along the way. I'm sure we're welcome back anytime.

All in all it was probably the most appropriate ending to our trip that we could have hoped for. And now, our adventure is over. Collectively we visited about a dozen countries, countless cities and towns, met wonderful people from all over the world wherever we went, and successfully postponed our real lives for two months. I'm sure we'll reminisce for many years to come. It's going to be difficult to top this trip, but I'm sure going to try...

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Photos

Paris from our hostel balcony
It's been fun