Day 701.

It’s Day 701 and it’s raining in Paris.

As in, really raining.

Part of me is considering whether or not I should be disappointed.

Tomorrow we’re flying home to Australia after almost two years travelling the world. But having this last experience in Paris messed up by lousy weather could be seen as bad luck.

We scurry over the Pont Royal bridge towards the Louvre Palace, hunched down with our umbrellas angled low into the strong wind to cut the rain.

Right now Paris isn’t feeling much like the “City of Romance” but more like the “City of Revenge”!

We cut across a grand boulevard and into the large Tuileries Gardens. We round a corner and suddenly we’re amongst the trees.

The wind drops away as we’re sheltered by the ornate walls of the Louvre - a raging battle has become a peaceful, murmuring sun shower. The rain is falling gently in the leaves above… and, in a moment that would have seemed improbable just moments ago, we’re dry and comfortable.

Across the other side of the garden we can see the famous glass pyramid entrance to the Louvre museum.

On a sunny day, this courtyard entrance is crammed with tourists taking the “classic” Louvre selfie, pretending to hold the tip of the pyramid in their fingers.

But today people are merely hurrying inside as fast as they can.

And that makes me smile.

It’s undeniable proof of one of the “natural orders” of the world:

a selfie may be stronger than timidity, but wind and rain trump a selfie!

My awareness spikes. This feels a lot like travel in general: beauty and discomfort, side-by-side, hand-in-hand.

Both have been omnipresent with us over the past two years.

We had to close our multi-million-dollar travel business because of the pandemic, but that freed us to travel as a family in a way we’d never imagined.

Borders opening and closing like railroad boom gates created stress, but that left us free to experience places like Uluru without another tourist in sight.

Mechanical issues, ant infestations and even cyclones sprang up in our path, but they simply became stories we would tell whilst watching a killer sunset or sipping a beer in front of a campfire under a blanket of millions of stars.

If there’s something that’s become clear to me, it’s that this is simply the normal course of life.

The Universe owes us nothing, and certainly not “stability”, so it’s up to us how we interpret the things that go on around us.

Some days it’s raining in Paris and maybe it's your last day in Paris. Should that change anything?

As if on cue, a street musician strikes up a tune on his accordion under an ostentatious archway nearby.

His tune sings the exquisite, aching blend of joy and melancholy that seeps through our veins at the end of a memorable trip.

In a world of contrast, brimming with competing ideologies and approaches, it’s clear that our perspective is vital in the way that we experience everything around us.

Having everything doesn’t cure some people from wanting more.

Having nothing doesn’t stop others from being filled up with gratitude.

My family has wandered off back towards our apartment and I’m left under the trees, watching the fleeing tourists and listening to the pattering of rain in the leaves above.

I get up to follow, casting a final look back at the Louvre, at Paris.

But I’m also looking back at the 701 days of adventure and learning that came about because we lost one of the biggest investments of our life.

And to me it’s suddenly as clear as a brilliant blue sky:

some people walk in the rain, others just get wet.

Rob Malicki is a traveller and storyteller.

His passion is helping young people to find the next step on their journey, because life is a daring adventure or nothing at all.

More -->?www.robmalicki.com/stories