The journey ends

We ended our month long trip in Paris by going to the top of the Peninsula Hotel.  The hotel went through a $575m renovation and has reopened its doors to quite the fanfare.  At the top there is a restaurant that resembles a glassed in jewel box.  Looming over the restaurant is the Eiffel Tower.   It is magnificent.  We just had drinks on the terrace where the ladies get white cashmere shawls for their shoulders if they get a little cold.  We sipped on our drinks, took in the views and reminisced about our last month of travel.

It has been an amazing journey on so many levels.  We spent 24/7 together for the past month and it was really great.  It reminded me of our cross country trip post-college and our honeymoon.  The wandering duo.  We are able to keep the Wilson company going regardless of where we are. We did not attend meetings, we did not do phone calls ( unless need be and there were a few of those ) but we both closed on several deals, did a few real estate transactions and kept up.  It is pretty amazing that you can basically do anything from anywhere just at a different pace.  The pace is what was important.

Some places we went to I can’t imagine ever returning to while others we will most definitely go back to such as Provence, the Bordeaux region and San Sebastian.  Some good hotels and some ok hotels.  I have wanted to build and open a hotel for years.  Trust me I know what would be the perfect hotel at this point down to how the robes are hung, how the soap is wrapped and how the coffee is made.

Getting back to reality will probably be as always where I just hit the ground running but there is no question that our heads have changed.  I can’t quite put my finger on it but it has.  Certainly being in an empty house with all the kids off in their own lives shifts everything yet that is just one component.  I am feeling really good about our stage of life and am so glad we took a month off to get there.

When we returned the first thing I did was whip up about 20 dozen chocolate chip cookies and bake a brisket for 12 hours.  We were getting up the next morning for parents weekend and the day called for a picnic on the hill.  I prepared the picnic that night and the next morning.  Not only did we see Emily and Josh but Jessica was up there the day before and left Ollie for us to take home.  Jessica took Ollie for the past month.  That was huge.  We picked him up, had a picnic, saw the kids, drove back to the city, attempted to get back on NYC time, dealt with mail for the past month and made dinner to have Jessica over.

On one hand it seems like we never left but there is no doubt that we did.