Everything went smoothly on my way to France. Although I could have done without the screaming kids in the 10-hour flight from San Francisco to London. I don't mind so much when babies are crying on planes. Babies are babies after all. I do resent when kids, around 3 or 4 are allowed to be yell and scream and jump on the seats on an airplane flying through the night, when people are trying to get a few moments of shut eye.

But aside from that, I did have a nice chat will Alex, who was my seatmate on the plane. Alex, who was in his early-mid 20s, was heading off to Europe to travel before entering law school in the fall. He had studied in Copenhagen for a semester in college but had not seen much else of the rest of Europe. We both agreed that it's good for Americans to get out in the world, to see how other people do things, that other countries and cultures have good ideas that we can learn from.

An interesting thing happened at the end of our conversation.

"How long are you staying in Europe," I asked him.
"I fly home July 18th."
"You're kidding," I said. "That's the same day I leave. Are you taking the same flight home?"

He is. We agreed it was quite a coincidence, sitting next to each other on the flight out, and returning; weeks out on entirely different trips, on the same day, and on the same flight. We agreed that we would look for each other on the return trip and compare notes.

The trip ended a little over 24 hours from when it started, when I walked out of the baggage area of the Toulouse airport, groggy from the journey, and was greeted by a smiling Léo.