Excerpt from my trip journal:

        “I certainly didn’t think my last day in France would be spent like this.  Although considering the luck Jayné and I have had with our transportation it shouldn’t surprise me.  Somehow I pictured us checked into a snug hotel full of charm and character and us sitting at a brasserie at an outdoor table perhaps, sipping a cup of café crème, watching people go by and discussing how this trip to France has changed us or affected our lives.  But now I am on this TGV train speeding towards Charles de Gaulle airport.  I look out my window and say my goodbyes to this beautiful country.  I’ve never seen such a beautiful sky, such unique and puffy clouds, such green fields as I see speeding past my window.  I’ve never seen such quaint farmhouses, such elegant manor homes, cute cows and sheep as I see right now outside my window. 

            I see a jet in the sky and I wonder who is on that plane and where they are going.  Soon it will be us on the plane headed back home, back to our family and friends, back to our lives, and France will seem so distant and so foreign.  But right now it seems almost home.  When I look back at my photos and souvenirs I just hope I have brought back a bit of France with me – not just in the tangible things I have in my suitcase but also inside of me.  I hope to bring back a bit of France – its language, its culture, its style – and make it a part of me and a part of my life.”