Even magical vacations in Paris have to come to an end.  I can’t really fathom every being happy or really ready to leave Paris, but I did feel that I was somewhat freer to leave for the following reasons.

1. Mouffetarte (home of The Quiche Lady) has closed up until September for vacation. Let us once again pause to appreciate that you can shut down your restaurant for 6 weeks every summer to relax. Vive la France.
2. I was finally able to see Sainte Chapelle without the scaffolding and renovation that has been there every other time I have tried. It is one of the few times when I feel it is really worth it to spend money just to see one room. Because that room looks like this:
3. I saw one lap of the final portion of the Tour de France, which feels like an impressive way to end. (Ok, confession: The only real reason I saw it was because we were on a several hour search to find a grocery store that was open on a Sunday, finally ending up on the Champs Elysées where Monoprix was open. So we celebrated shopping success by catching the end of the biggest bike race on earth.)
4. In 2007 when I studied abroad, I started a sketchbook. It came back with me in 2009-10, and has also been dragged to art museums all across the world in the meantime. I wanted to finish it in Paris, where it all began. This meant lots of museum time in my last couple of days, but I finished it, mostly by embracing fast sketches done with a stick of charcoal. These are a couple of the results. 
5. Late the night before I left I still had some Euros to spend. Not enough to make it worth exchanging and so I decided to fulfill a Very Superficial Life Goal (everyone should have those on hand): buy Ladurée macarons that come in one of the swanky fancy boxes. Accomplished. And devoured.