The Eiffel Tower

March 26
It turned out to be really easy to use the metro and we got off and made our way to the Eiffel Tower. It turned out to be really pretty and we walked up the green lawn towards it. There was a family of four taking pictures 3 at a time, and I wanted a picture with Jamil so we asked them to take ours and we would take one with all 4 of them if they would like. That worked out well and we went on our merry way towards the tower. We stopped to admire and take more photos and then we rounded the corner and saw that there was a huge line to go up to the top. We went and hopped in right away and it was a good thing we did because quickly the line grew at least 2x the size. We got right in front of a group speaking in Spanish. Part of the group was in front of us and told us to go ahead because they had to get with the rest of the group. Jamil was confused because they had said it in Spanish so I translated. The line moved slowly but we managed to get to the gated area soon enough. Just as we started to walk through, the security guard closed it off and let a “group” through. It was a tour of Asians. I guess the guard thought I had said something smart because he looked at me and said, “What?” with a little smirk. I just smiled and was confused. I had just laughed because it was funny that we had just missed the cut off. After the group filtered through we were let past and into line. At that point it went quickly. We went and got tickets and then got in another line and got in the elevator, which they crammed you in. We stopped at the 2nd floor and switched elevators to go to the top. We were smooshed in that one even more and there was an Asian man with really bad onion breath. I was disgusted. We finally got off and were introduced to the freezing cold wind that blew at the top of the tower. We stayed on the safe side away from the gusting winds. You could still kinda feel it sway in the “breeze.” We didn’t spend much time up there, we took in the view took our pictures and headed for the elevator. When we got in the elevator we found out that we had a pretty funny attendant. He started out by pretending the elevator buttons were a video game controller and he talked about how he never had games as a kid so this was as close as he could get. Then he had obviously talked to the girls in the elevator before and was blatantly flirting but he was telling them that they should have fun with their time in Paris. They were free from their parents and responsibilities. They needed to be free and express themselves. Then he went on to say that he lived right over there as he pointed off in the distance and his wife she could control him from there, she probably had binoculars. We all got a little chuckle out of that. Once we got to the second level we went out and took some more pictures and then got in line for the elevator to the first floor at that floor we actually got out and looked at the places they had listed. They had the distances to cities around the world listed around the inside. Finally we headed back down to the bottom and as soon as we got off the elevator we were attacked by vendors selling cheap souvenir Eiffel Towers. We managed to get through them and head off to catch the metro.