The Jetpacker

Even on a cold, wet, cloudy day, the Eiffel Tower was breathtaking.  (Or maybe I was just breathing heavily because it was a long walk to the tower.)

For a short time, the sky seemed to open like a curtain, and the morning light spotlighted the tower.  But the curtains closed as fast they opened, and the clouds swallowed the tip of the tower.  Even without its crown, the Eiffel Tower stood tall and proud like a king.

The best place to grasp the scope of the tower is from Trocadero, where numerous museums are housed inside the Palais de Chaillot.

The walk to the tower felt like a first date: we were eager to get there, but it was taking forever to arrive.  With each step, the tower seemed to get further away.

Once we were beneath this iron behemoth, the tower quickly went from beautiful to intimidating.  Standing underneath the Eiffel Tower is like being an ant about to get squashed by a giant foot.

The wait to get to the top was miserable.  It was the coldest day in Paris yet, and each gust of wind felt like an ice pick stabbing at our bones.  The cold went through us as if our jackets were made of toilet paper.

Fortunately, we didn’t have to wait too long.  We arrived about 45 minutes before the tower opened (I knew our congeniality awards would come in handy some day) and we were amongst the first five groups to go to the top.

When we finally reached the pinnacle, we couldn’t wait to get down.  Why?

We were above the clouds.  It was like looking out the window of an airplane that got stuck in the sky.  That epic view of Paris we had dreamed about literally vanished into thin air.

Outside on the deck, there was no one proposing.  There were no lovers kissing.  There weren’t even kids spitting over the edge.  No, there was only mist and wet handle rails and telescopes with nothing to peer at.

So we took the elevator back down to the lower viewing decks.  The view from there was like winning a silver medal:  it’s nice, but it’s not as good as it could have been.

We escaped the cold by eating a warm chocolate-covered waffle in the cafe.  There’s also a gift shop where you can send a letter back home with a stamp from the Eiffel Tower.

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