Europe, episode 1: La Tour Eiffel

Naturally, we had to start our entire sojourn in France doing something completely touristy and cliched.  Rebecca (or Bear, as she hates me to call her) really wanted to see the Eiffel Tower and when in Paris, how can you not?

I have a love-hate relationship with Paris.  I adore French (obviously) and I think it is a beautiful place but people have been less than kind and after my friend got pickpocketed and I was stranded there without money in a blizzard for three days, I've developed a sharp phobia of something similar happening.

So Paris and I, we haven't spoken in a few years.  This time, armed with my baby, present-tense-only, French and a dose of optimism, my goal was to make amends.

We put our bags down at the apartment where we were staying and had lunch at Trocadero - goat's cheese for me, a croque madame for her.  (Goat's cheese is my poison in France.  One of the best meals I've ever had in life was a goat's cheese salad in Cannes that almost made me cry.)

My old friend, Marie, met us at the cafe and we strolled down to the tower together.  The Eiffel Tower is not pretty, or particularly historic like some of the Roman monuments we saw.  I'm not sure I'm even that fond of it.  But there's something about it.

Each time I see it, almost-rosy, almost-faint against a sky heavy with grey clouds, I feel a strange sense of longing.  I don't know what this pull is but standing at Trocadero, looking across to the tower, it came over me again.  We were finally in France.  Together.  Having planned this trip for a year.  

We went down the steps and crossed the fountains before deciding to complete the tourist experience doing something I'd never done before: climb the tower.

As part of my friendship-making effort I lingered underneath the tower, admiring the symmetry and structure of the lattices, the curlicues under the arches - delicate in something so huge.  We also people watched; under the giant Roland Garros tennis ball that had been strung up for the French Open, we saw groups of men with souped-up bicycles ride past, their bells making the cold air tingle.  Tourists posed for photos while their children ran, waving, among the pigeons.

Eventually, we drifted over to the base of the stairs, bought 5euro tickets, and crumbling macarons from Carette (highly recommended!) in our mouths, started upward.  The weather was perfect, gusty and chilly and it was easily the most comfortable climb of the trip.

We stopped on the first level and I bit back my fear of heights and stood on the glass viewing platform for a good five seconds.  (Mind you, not two nights before that moment, I'd heard news of Chicago's glass viewing platform cracking so I thought my fear was well-placed.)

Thus refreshed (or frightened), we finished the last four hundred or so steps with a little whining (me) and laughing (Bear).  Now I've never really been seized by the need to climb the tower before, but I really enjoyed the view on the second floor and the wind buffeting my face.  We could see the (arguably less exciting) Tour Montparnasse, Notre Dame and other church spires peeking over the tops of the slate-blue roofs for which Paris is so famous.  Below us, people swarmed round a giant screen showing the French Open.

Up close, we could see the squat, pyramid-shaped lights that make the tower glitter at night.  

On the second-floor mezzanine, I stood and watched a very enthused tour guide tell stories about the tower in French and fought to understand snatches of words on the wind.  (This became my favourite hobby of the trip, Bear got very used to me grabbing passing waiters and asking them what things meant, or making her look up advertisement words on the Metro with her fancy iPhone app.  For instance, with some help, I could understand that the plaque below was a tribute to some crazy dude who had walked a tightrope between Trocadero and the second floor of the Eiffel Tour.  And no, I didn't cheat by looking at the picture.)

Above the ground, my breathing started to slow in the cold and by the time we were ready to descend, I felt calmer, more alive.

I suppose we all did.

We capped the evening by people watching and then walking along the dusky Seine until the urge to pee kicked in.  I ended up hopping desperately on my toes outside a mechanical loo that kept yelling "DOOR CLOSING... DOOR CLOSING" in French and spraying water on itself as I tried to get in and Bear laughed helplessly by the side.

Oh well.  So much for the city of romance!