oh yeah, the Eiffel Tower!

After a long day of grave hunting and art reflection, I have reached about 5:30 pm in the day and I am unsure what to do next as I have no plans and no idea what makes the most sense by my current location. The answer looms in the skyline. You can’t come to Paris without going to the Eiffel Tower! After hiking my butt across town to get to the tower, once again I was hot and exhausted so I bought a giant bottle of water and a sandwich du jambon and settled under a tree to watch the elevators go up and down the tower. I was hoping to wait until the sun went down a bit and maybe time it just right to get to the top for sunset (As reccommended by sheila!).

Now I know that every tourist that comes to paris makes the obligatory march to the mecca of the eiffel tower, but I never really considered that all these people must wait in line . 3 hours. That’s right, three hours of weaving and waiting to buy the ticket. This is when the wave of “traveling alone really sucks” hits me as I am standing in the middle of a packet of people yammering in Japanese for hours in a line that doesn’t seem to move. I was considering bailing ship when I overheard someone say, “wow, this is nothing compared to this morning”…UGH, I guess I have to stay commited to the cattle herding!

A million and a half hours later I make it to the elevators and begin to climb upwards – first to the second level. It is still daylight and I snapped tons of pictures and considered dropping a euro down to see if I could crush one of those pushy street salesmen trying to sell everyone mini eiffel towers for the price of a full dinner. No thank you. But I decided to breathe in the beauty and made my way all sides of the tower. Next was another hour line to take the elevator to the summit – my timing was perfect for the sunset, it is now 9 pm!

Being at the top as the sun sank into the city was absolutely amazing, a sight like non other. Truly the end of a spectacular day, but as I waited in another hour line to go back down, I classified the Eiffel Tower under my file entitled “so glad that I did it, no way in hell am I ever doing this again”. Not during the summer or all alone anyway… As I made my way back to my side of town, I kept looking back over my shoulder. Not to watch out for muggers – but to see the tower all lit up and dazzling against the night sky.