J'aime Paris

One experience that has always been on my bucket list, (yes you can have a bucket list at the age of twenty) is to climb to the very, tippy-top of the Eiffel Tower. Today was the day that I would trek to the uppermost tip of the tallest, extremely intimidating 1,063-foot tall monument in the Champ de Mars district in Paris, France. As I walked over to the line for the stairs with a group of friends I pretended to be carefree, adventurous showing no apprehension of this feat. I looked up; I mean way up I had to completely arch my entire neck back to gaze at the innovative woven metal structure, that’s when I got a pit in my stomach. I hesitantly made my way through the line until finally our group reached the entrance to the endless winding fragile looking metal stairs. We started our journey, it was dusk, and I was just waiting for the sun to set and my nervousness to escalate. We made it to the first level after, this level was not so scary, and it was guarded with a chain link metal fence, making it nearly impossible to fall. We needed to go higher, my group was up for the adventure, my heart dropped and I kept haphazardly jogging up to the second level. The panoramic view from this level was more beautiful that I can describe, but still we needed to go higher, we HAD to go to the top. To me this seemed unnecessary, but I decided I had to do it, I couldn’t be a chicken. It was dark now out the city lights were illuminating the sky; I turned and waited again in line to reach the final level the third level, the actual top of the Eiffel Tower. We reached the “lift” I held on to the bar in the elevator for dear life, my hands were calmly, my mouth was dry, I was going to actually do it. The door opened, I looked around, my ears popped, and I was actually more than 1,000 feet in the air. I ran over to the windows to see the view, this made this entire adventure more than worth all the apprehension and fear. I gazed out the series of windows to see stunning lights of the city, any color you could think of red, blue, yellow, green. The view was full with organically grown streets and districts of Paris that streamed out like a tree root. These streets and districts are densely populated and are part of the city center or the Champ de Mars District. I looked out again, I pointed out the Bastille District where I had been staying. I noticed the defined cut boulevard of the Champ de Lysee, a key route that had been cut out in the 19th century as a main route of the city. Spanning across all of the districts, boulevards and lights was the Seine River a boundary of the city. Reflecting over and actually seeing this view made me see Paris as a city of beauty but also of power. The Eiffel Tower personifies this in that it is part of the cultural identity of Paris that was build as an entrance for the World’s Fair in 1889 is symbol as well as a means of viewing the entire city.