As I sit on the plane flying back home, reading Ernest Hemingway’s A Movable Feast, I have a feeling of disappointment.  A feeling that I didn’t make the most of my time while abroad. Like I spent too much time alone and not meeting new people and creating new and wonderful relationships.

When spring came, even the false spring, there were no problems except where to be happiest. The only thing that could spoil a day was people, and if you could keep from making engagements, each day had no limits. People were always the limiters of happiness except for the very few who were as good as the spring itself (A Movable Feast, pg. 41)

Now I disagree strongly with Hemingway’s views of people and happiness. I think that it is our own egos that gets in the way of our own happiness. That is to say we just allow people to get us down when we don’t need to. But where he is right is there are people out there that truly are as good as the spring itself. And I think it’s not just a very few. I like to believe it is most. All this is to say that I think true happiness comes with people and relationships. I forget that often, and I feel that I forgot that too often on this trip to Paris. Of course I was extremely happy and made some amazing memories Biking through the Alsace wine region, and hiking to the top of Ben Nevis in Scotland. But what is sort of amusing that is I found more joy making small talk with the baker down the street from my apartment most mornings than I did summiting the tallest peak in the united kingdom.

I have had the time of my life on this trip and I will never forget the memories I have made and music I have heard. I just want to share that the memories that that made me happier than anything else were the ones that involved positive human interaction.

I am home now and it feels so good! But I am already starting to miss the places I’ve been on my trip. Getting up in this morning I wasn’t able to walk two blocks down the street to the nearest cafe or bakery, or another two blocks to the next nearest bakery and cafe. I wont be able to walk around Olympia at night on any given day of the week and fine wonderful live jazz being played at some random bar or cafe. Also I woke up at 5:00 this morning which is a pain. Stupid jet lag. But It is nice to have the apartment to myself this morning to be able to just sit, sip some (actually good) coffee and write my last blog post for this quarter.

Once again it has been an amazing trip and I look froward to sharing in detail all of my adventures with the class, friends and my family. And what will be even cooler over the next week will be to condense down all that I have learned over the past 6 weeks and turn it into something I can present to all of you.

Thank you all so much for reading this and and keeping in touch. And for leaving such thoughtful and thought provoking comments that helped make my trip so much better than it already was. I hope to see all of you very soon.

With lots of love,

Aaron

The Sunset from my apartment on my last might in Paris.