The Triumph of the Tower

Having read in the guidebooks that you really need to get to it early if you want to avoid lengthy (and I mean 4 hours plus) lineups at any of the main Paris attractions, the boys, Karen and I made it out of bed, fuelled on nothing other than espresso and enthusiams (well, the kids had yogurt instead of the coffee), we headed out again to the Eiffel Tower. It was drizzling when we went underground into the Metro. When we emerged 30 minutes later, much to our absolute shock, it was blue sky. How can the weather change so fast?

We made for the line up, having arrived at the base of this spectacular monument at about 9:30, and found the line up to be another shock -- only 5 minutes long. Squished in with a busload of Korean tourists (who were seriously charmed by Alden's long blond hair), we made for the top of the tower. As Alden said "Great Views! Where's the Church?!" Elwyn was also completely engulfed by the experience. No vertigo for these guys, and fantastic views of the entire city. We ate patries and waffles, and made it down a couple hours later. By the time we were down those 4 hour line ups (minimum) had already formed.

Walked into a posh area of Paris looking for somewhere to lunch. Found a little place the locals buy italian speciaty food, so we made a little picnic and headed back to the base of the Tower.

Then we fairly randomly decided to walk south, more or less to get to a metro and to see what was there. Found Rue du Commerce, which was an interesting street of little shops and cafes. We found one kids shoe store closing out and bought Alden a new pair of sandals (his blue ones were hardly holding up to the amount of walking we've been doing. Elwyn insisted we get the ones with cute little lights on them, which he is completely impressed with. Took another espresso break at an intersection which they were re-paving. Elwyn sat glued to the heavy machinery and the intensely busy french traffic rushed by.

Back to the apartment for a quick, cheap supper, then out again, this time to see the grounds of the Louvre. Alden again was amazed. He looked was stunned by all these 'trolls' everywhere on the face of the building, and decided that he would spit at them so they wouldn't bother him. We went for a long walk through the grounds of the Louvre (like a 3 km long walk!) towards the arc de triumph. We couldn't make it. A bit of ice cream from an absurdly overpriced vender-to-the-tourists and we made it home by a grueling 10pm.