Day Thirteen:

Before I talk about Paris, let's talk about Disneyland.

I actually went to Disneyland with family at the very start of this trip for three days. What a start, let me tell you. Three days of big crowds, stroller pushing (or in my world, Death Star trench runs) and really really overpriced terrible food.

As much as I'm always willing to go to Disneyland, I don't love it. It's not my favorite place.

To me, Disneyland is manufactured, yet somehow still manages to have that sort of aura that feels genuine. People love Disneyland. Adore Disneyland. They tell stories of magic and wonder and romance that, whether or not they actually believe their own stories, they tell them so often and with such fervor that they become real.

It is where visitors from afar make pilgrimage to, to view history, experience the stories shared by countless other travelers, to taste a specific slice of life and walk away with a pocketful of memories. And If it were possible to move there, people would.

Day Ten:

All the things you probably hate about travelling -the recycled air, the artificial lighting, the digital juice dispensers, the cheap sushi- are warm reminders that I'm home.

-Ryan Bingham (George Clooney), Up in the Air

Unlike Mr. Bingham, I've grown to hate business travel. If travel is over-romanticized, then business travel is even more so. It's fun the first few times, but nothing is more grating than having no time to relax and having no time to explore wherever your destination is.

Like Mr. Bingham, however, I love airports. They're one of the few places you see people leave, people arrive, people celebrate reunions, people mourn goodbyes. But I also love them because they're like mini cities, reflecting some idea of what that particular city values.

For example, RyanAir apparently requires you to print a boarding pass. And if you've already checked in, it costs you fifteen pounds. Crazy. Thankfully I had spare change and went to a cafe to print it out on my own. It's always the little details you don't expect when you travel—the ways that other people do the things you consider basic, mundane, and take for granted. It's part of the adventure.

That said, sometimes things go the other way, where you see how other people run things and you wonder why we don't adopt a few of them. One example I think the TSA could take a page from:

Day Six:

Part because history, part because the countryside, but not at all because I'm interested in schools and universities, I take a day to go visit Cambridge, and a mutual friend graciously offers to hang out with me for the day.

It's easy for a west-coast American to forget that much of the western world has history that dates back further than 100 years (and that Native American history goes significantly further than that), so I'm mildly surprised to see churches, schools, and other buildings that are, at least in part, hundreds of years old. Which means, this place also has hundreds of years of culture and tradition to go with it.

For fun we snack at The Eagle in Cambridge, which is where Watson and Crick supposedly announced to the world their discovery of DNA. I can see how this place is conducive to deep discussions and scientific discoveries. My new friend and I spend a good chunk of time discussing Brexit, race and British history. She asks me about the American election, as nearly everyone does as soon as they learn I'm from the land where democracy becomes an entertainment show for one-and-a-half years. Maybe these topics aren't quite as deep as discovering DNA, but some credit is still due.

Day 0:

Nerves.

It's the last thing I expected to feel and so much of what is pulsing through my veins. It dawns on me that I've never actually done this—take a trip with no plans. Every time I've done something crazy, there's always been an end goal. I went to a noname city in China, but eventually I settled into a routine of teaching English. I wandered around Taipei for a little while, but then settled into a routine of going to classes almost every day.

There is no goal here.

Those nerves are my with me as I board the plane and take my seat. I haven't stayed in a hostel in at least six years. The only time I've dealt with foreign money since Taipei is the now-very-familiar-place of Hong Kong. I don't have enough clothes—how am I going to do laundry? The last time I seriously traveled I didn't even have a smartphone.

That last thought makes me feel better. For whatever traveling skills I've lost over the years, I'm sure my phone will make up for it in spades.

Consider this a pitch for Alaska's capital city. Think there's nothing to do in Juneau? Allow me to prove you wrong. Here's what two guys did with roughly 60 hours in Juneau, in almost the order it happened. If Alaska needs a writer for its tourism industry, they can shoot me a line.

Juneau International Airport:

Quaint.

That's the first word that pops into my head as we wander around the airport. It's also the kindest euphemism I can come up with. I try not to judge, but judgment is already lying around at every corner waiting for me to pick it up and stuff it into my backpack.

"How do you do it?" she asked me.

"How do you mean?"

We sat huddled on a couch against a far wall in somebody's house. Everyone else at the party was chit chatting away. So were we, her and me. Just, away from everyone else. As if we were having a secret conversation.

"How do you spend so much time with them? You know they're going to leave."

Year 5 was the hardest, maybe even the hardest of my entire life. It's also when I thought that, for sure, me and Seattle were over.

I doubt anybody believed me. "I'm thinking about moving back," was the line everyone—in Seattle and elsewhere—had heard from me year, after year, after year, after year.

But I believed me. I believed that this time was different. I was tired. Tired of pain, tired of pouring energy into things that didn't matter, tired of the ups and downs.

I actually decided to leave and put some real, concrete plans into motion. The person I often deceive the most, is myself.

I first came to Chicago in the Fall. I came with optimism in my smile, jitters in my nerves and a brain brimming with uncertainty about the future, my future.

That made Fall the perfect season to move in. It was stunning from the very first time I saw it. I'd never seen anything like it. Crisp air off the coast of Lake Michigan. Leaves of golden yellow, bronze orange, brick red. I thought color combinations like these only existed in videogames and photography oversaturated in Photoshop.

If you want to time travel, go to a wedding.

Around this time last week, I sat at a table of 10. At a wedding.

Supposedly the year was 2015. It felt like 2004. Or 2007. Or 2010.

That's the beauty of weddings. They're time machines.