The morning after

I'm writing this from a small café near my hotel, where I've claimed a corner table away from the window. It's 7:20, and the owner has already switched on the fans despite the early hour. The temperature is supposedly 20°C, but it feels heavier than that—the kind of heat that lingers from the day before.

I couldn't sleep well. The yellow warning for extreme temperatures is still in effect, and even with the window open, my room felt like it was holding onto yesterday's 37°C. Around 3 AM, I gave up and sat by the window, watching the empty street below. There's something about Paris at that hour—the way the streetlights make everything look softer, more forgiving.

The café is nearly empty. A woman in running clothes sits two tables over, scrolling through her phone with a cup of tea. The owner is wiping down the counter with slow, methodical movements. On the television mounted in the corner, there's footage from Saturday's protests—thousands of people marching through these same streets, demanding action against sexual violence after the death of that 11-year-old girl.

I watched some of it happen from a distance on Saturday. The sound of the crowd moving through the city, the way the energy shifted in the air. Now, seeing it on the news, it feels both immediate and distant at the same time. The woman who left flowers at Bastille—I wonder if she was part of this. I wonder if her daughter was.

The owner brings me water without asking. "Buvez lentement," he says. Drink slowly. It's the same advice the elderly man at that café near the Panthéon gave me. Everyone here knows what this heat can do.

I'm thinking about leaving. Not today, not tomorrow—but soon. Maybe it's the heat making the decision for me, or maybe it's something else. I've been in Paris for 288 days now. That's longer than I've been anywhere on this entire journey. Longer than I've stayed in one place since I left Kristiansand.

The woman with the elderly dog at the Medici Fountain told me something last week. She said people come to Paris for many reasons, but they stay for only one: because they've found what they were looking for, or because they've stopped looking.

I'm not sure which category I fall into.

On the television, they're showing the Tour de France route. The cyclists will be in Paris on July 26th. Three weeks from now. I could stay for that. Or I could be somewhere else entirely by then. Somewhere cooler, maybe. Somewhere I haven't been.

The truth is, I'm tired of making these decisions. When I started this journey, every choice felt significant—which city, which train, which direction. Now, 314 days in, I've realized that most of the time, it doesn't matter which path you take. They all lead somewhere. They all teach you something.

What matters is being present when you get there.

I have 186 days left. That's still a lot of time. Still a lot of places I haven't seen. But there's also this quiet voice that's been getting louder lately, asking: what if seeing more places isn't the point anymore?

The café owner is watching the news now, arms crossed. The footage shifts to the extreme heat warnings, the map of France colored in yellow and orange. He shakes his head slowly.

"Chaque année, c'est pire," he says to no one in particular. Every year, it's worse.

He's right. And we all know it. We adapt—we drink water slowly, we arrive early at museums, we change our routines. But we can't adapt forever. Eventually, something has to change more fundamentally.

I think about that sometimes. About what I said I wanted to do—change the world. It sounds so grandiose now, so naive. How do you change the world when you can't even decide which city to be in?

But then I remember the woman leaving flowers. The museum guard who told me to take my time. The café owners who bring water without asking. Maybe that's how. Not through grand gestures, but through small acts of care, repeated until they become the norm.

The temperature is already climbing. By this afternoon, it will be back up to 37°C. The forecast says it will be even hotter tomorrow, and the day after that. 38°C, 37°C, 37°C. The city is preparing, adjusting, enduring.

I should probably leave my corner table soon. Go back to my room, pack my things, prepare for whatever comes next. But I'm not ready yet. I'll have another coffee. I'll watch the morning unfold through the doorway. I'll let the decision form itself, the way all the best decisions do—slowly, naturally, inevitably.

Sometimes you don't choose to leave. Sometimes you just realize you've already started saying goodbye.

The woman in running clothes stands up, pays, and heads out into the growing heat. Through the doorway, I can see the street beginning to wake up. Somewhere in this city, the Tour de France organizers are double-checking their heat protocols. Somewhere, people are preparing to march again, to demand change, to refuse to accept that this is just how things are.

And somewhere in my mind, a departure date is forming. Not today. But soon.

For now, I'm here. In this café, in this heat, in this moment between staying and leaving. And maybe that's exactly where I need to be.