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.
Comments (Archived):
Welcome back!Was a beautiful morning in NY today:http://awaldstein.tumblr.co…
Welcome back Joanne!
Welcome back. BTW, Ollie is quite the cutie, and appears immaculately groomed to boot.
ha. he is quite the cutie.
It was amazing following you two around with this blog. Excellent that you ended it in Paris too.
Yup. One thing my wife and I have decided is we are going to live close to our kids. One has settled back in Chicago for the time being, and the other looks like she might. We actually encouraged them to look to live in other places if only for the experience–and the fiscal condition of the state/city/county.Back when we were starting out, the dream of parents was to retire to Florida and have kids visit them. I don’t see that with our generation happening with the same velocity.
.I hate to see your return, the blog stories and pics were the best.JLM.
will take another trip…
.The empty nest is good, very good.JLM.
Thanks for sharing the whole trip! Loved following along.
And that cutie. Is he a golden doodle?
thanks for sharing and welcome back!
Thank you for sharing your trip. For the past month your blog was my first read every morning. It gave me the opportunity to return to old favorites and visit new places to add to my trip list. Your pictures and delicate descriptions of food was incredible. Thank you again for allowing me to follow your journey.
love how everyone followed around.
Ollie is such a trooper.
haha. he is.
About those cookies………….
http://gothamgal.com/2010/0…
Loved the stories, Joanne 🙂 felt like we lived the trip too… Cant wait to meet Ollie 🙂 also hope to sample those cookies some day!Welcome back to the madness!!