A View From Above

The whole trip I kept saying we’ll have time to do things. When Kathryn and I went to the Eiffel tower early on in the trip and had a hard time getting our pictures to turn out, I said we’ll have plenty of chances to come and take them in better lighting, better weather, etc. We never did end up getting any more options for profile worthy pictures in front of the Eiffel tower. I never did make it to the Picasso museum, because I kept putting it off. A few of us had said we wanted to climb to the top of the three major attractions: the Arc de Triomphe, Notre Dame, and the Eiffel Tower. We never made it to the top of the Arc de Triomphe and it took until the last week to get to the top of Notre Dame.

Towards the end it sort of seemed like I wasn’t going to make it to the top of the Eiffel Tower. My family’s original plan was to go see it the Monday I was returning from London, without me. As the date got closer I convinced them Notre Dame, Montmartre, and jet leg would be plenty exhausting for their first day, and we rescheduled the Eiffel Tower to the next day. I had begun to make peace with the idea of not going up in the Eiffel Tower during my stay, but it felt ridiculous to have lived in Paris for three months and not done the one, perhaps most iconic touristic thing. Yet, I still didn’t have an overwhelming desire to climb to the top just to see another bird’s eye view of Paris. Isn’t the most exciting thing about having a panoramic view of Paris seeing the Eiffel Tower itself?

Still, I was excited I would at least be able to say I did indeed go up in the Eiffel Tower. So, after a long day at Versailles we stopped at the Eiffel Tower an hour or two before sunset to get to the top. Luckily, the lines for the elevators weren’t too long and we made it to the very top in a fairly decent amount of time. I guess I had lowered my expectations because the views and experience exceeded what I had in my mind. It was amazing to see everything, it was like a quick little summary of all the experiences I had in Paris. A few days earlier Denise had sent me a snapchat of a view from up in the Eiffel Tower with a caption that represented Haussmanization—I believe while on top of Notre Dame I may have exclaimed “I see Haussman!”—and it definitely put a smile on my face. I took a photo and then zoomed in and screenshot it because I thought it was hilarious that you could get Notre Dame and Saint Sulpice in the same picture. I was explaining what and where things were to my family, and the whole experience made me feel content and proud. Ultimately, I’m so happy that I didn’t go without a trip to the top of the Eiffel Tower, but I am glad that I waited until the end. It was exciting to be able to look around at everything and really appreciate it for what it is and reflect on all the amazing times I had in Paris.