La Tour Eiffel

I arrived back in Perpignan last night after a wonderful sejour in Paris for the past week.  It was a trip of twists and turns, dancing, monuments, catching up with friends, tasty French delights, American food cravings, art, and much more.  While I have so much to share, I'm going to start solely with the Eiffel Tower.

This was not my first time in Paris and I have seen the Eiffel Tower multiple times, but this time was special because it was my first time going to the very top.  Of course we hit a couple bumps in the road, which made it eventually even more special.  While we planned on hitting up the tower the first morning of our trip, our housing fell through last minute so we spent that morning looking for places to stay.  After booking the same hostel for one more night and figuring out the rest of our time later that day - we ended up in an airbnb apartment since the hostel was completely booked -, we woke up early on the second morning of our trip to make our way to the Eiffel Tower.  Early was a little difficult.  With three hours of sleep (we couldn't miss the opportunity to go out dancing the night before!), we hopped on the metro and made our way to the tourist hotspot, arriving around 10 am. 

When we arrived, the queue was already snaking its way out of the designated spot, but we were determined and we waited.  Finally after an hour and a half, we made our way up to the ticket counter, through the security checkpoint, and into the elevator.  Shoved towards the back, I peeked between the bodies crowded into the small room and saw us rising above the city of Paris.  Higher and higher.  We reached the midpoint where it was necessary to change elevators, which we rode to the very top.  Well it was almost the tippy top, but that's really just a radio antennae. 

It was amazing!  It's true that the Eiffel Tower is completely a tourist hotspot and way too busy, but nonetheless it is an amazing place.  From the top, we found the monuments in the city including the Louvre, Notre-Dame, Sacre Coeur, Arc de Triomphe, and Musee d'Orsay.  They resembled mere toys with little ants swarming around. 

After plenty of pictures and admiring the scenery, we rushed towards the bottom, taking an elevator from the top to the midpoint and walking down the stairs from there,  in order to arrive in time to pick up our keys for our new lodging and meet up with Colorado friends for lunch. 

But that's not all!  We came back to the tower later in our trip for a special photo shoot...