The Eiffel Tower

The first thing we did in Paris was to visit the Arc de Triomphe.  It's an impressive structure built to honor those who fought and died in the French Revolution and the Napoleonic wars.  When we reached the top of it, we had great views of the Eiffel Tower and spent lots of time taking pictures with it in the background.  After word we headed down the highly recommended avenue Champs de Elysees which reminded me a lot of Las Ramblas in Spain.  Like in Spain, we tired of it quickly and soon retreated to a closer view of the Eiffel Tower.  Like the cows in Switzerland, we could not get enough of it.  When you think about it, really it's just a tower.  It shouldn't be that big of a deal.  But it is!  It's absolutely amazing to look at and I'm not sure why.  We ended up spending the rest of the day with it.  After taking a rest on the lawn right in front of it we decided to go in.  There was a bit of a delay because someone had parked their bike and locked it right under the tower and the police had to call the bomb squad to have it checked out before they would let anyone in.  It turned out to belong to someone who thought they'd found the perfect parking spot.  Imagine how they felt when they came down and their bike was no longer there.  The "bomb" ended up being a good thing for us because the lines had all but disappeared and we got right in.  Because we didn't learn our lesson in Switzerland about taking a ride when one is offered, we hiked up as far as the 700 stairs would let us go.  Which was only about half way up but was still really, really, really high.  The views of Paris were amazing of course.  When we got down we headed to yet another Carrefour and bought dinner.  We carried it back to the grass in front of the Eiffel Tower where lots of people were sitting and waiting for the lighting of the tower.  It reminded me of going to City Park on the 4th of July and waiting for fireworks.  Right now it doesn't get dark in Paris until around 10:00 so we were there for a long time.  I never got bored of looking at it though.  At one point John went with the kids over to the park and I stayed in our spot people watching.  Here are some observations I made about Parisians:

• They always have to kiss each other when they are greeting one another.  It doesn't matter what gender they are.  If one person joins a group, he/she goes around and kisses every single person in the group.  If two groups happen to meet up, everyone in the first group must kiss everyone in the second group.  
• I'd say about 80% of Parisians smoke.  And they seem to start young.
• Some Indian Parisians were going around trying to sell bottles of wine illegally to the people waiting on the grass.  They had their wine bottles in green bags and they were trying to be discreet.  Their stealth must have in some way been compromised because at one point a group of about 5 of them went bolting past me, threw their bags safe and sound in some trash cans and kept on running.  Well, I had been observing a group of teenagers between 13 and 15 years old sitting on the lawn near me who were all smoking as though they'd been doing it for years.  They saw the whole thing happen with the Indians and one at a time they started getting up and going digging in the garbage cans.  I watched them conspicuously as only a substitute teacher can.  I knew what they were doing and was wondering what they were waiting for.  I guess they were waiting for me to turn my head because I only took about a 10 second break from craning my neck and when I turned around again, they were gone.  It was funny to watch the Indians dig through the garbage cans scratching their heads once the coast was clear and they returned to continue their dirty work.  

The lighting of the tower was better than expected.  They didn't just turn on the lights but did about a 5 minute twinkling show before they turned the regular lights on.  We didn't start for the subway until about midnight and we got home right around 1:00 A.M.  We were all exhausted.

Frustration of the day:

Whitney has a small bladder and when she says she has to go, she means business.  I took her to the only bathroom near the Eiffel Tower and there was a sign up that said "Closed for cleaning."  Great.  So we walked into some bushes in the park and she did her business there.  What else could we do?  Well, we went back to that same bathroom about an hour later and guess what.  There was a sign up that said, "Closed for cleaning".  No worries.  I know the perfect place to go.  Back to the bushes.  After climbing the Eiffel Tower it was finally opened and we saw that there was a bathroom attendant just sitting there for no reason that I could guess.  She wasn't collecting money or anything.  Just sitting and observing.  My guess is that she had been taking her 3 hour lunch break during the "cleaning" time.  Well, right around 10:30 p.m. when we went back one last time there was a man there blocking us from going in.  He said they were closing.  When we looked at the sign it said that they weren't supposed to close until 11:00.  He said they had to start closing now or they would never be able to close.  I looked around and there were only about 3 people standing around.  We argued with him about letting our kids use the toilet but he was bound and determined to go home early.  So, back to the bushes we went.  As we were approaching, there was a man coming out zipping his pants up.  Nice.  Apparently we weren't the only ones at the Eiffel Tower that day that needed a water closet.

Arc de Triomphe

View from the Arc de Triomphe

Nice shot, John