I think my young obsession with the Eiffel Tower started because of a book. As a fourth grader I always wanted to be a fashion designer, so when I came across a book that featured a pre-teen fashion designer in Paris…I was 4th grade mind blown. For years after reading that book I wanted everything with the Eiffel Tower on it. I had shirts, lamps, posters, the works. I grew out of it, thankfully, but it never completely went away. I still always wanted to go to Paris.
This past summer I finally had the opportunity for that dream to come true and it was so much better than I ever could have imagined it being. So before I get into specifics, my one overwhelming piece of advice is: JUST GO! No matter how long you have to save, how cheap you have to travel, and no matter how many “will work for plane tickets” signs you have to make, find a way to get there, because it is worth it.
The magic starts in the taxi, which happened to be a Mercedes Benz btw! Driving through the (super crowded) streets of Paris, you already begin to see just how grand the city is. Passing by the Norte Dame Cathedral and spotting the Eiffel Tower in the distance all in the same ( 45 minute) car ride is enough to take your breath away and have your face pressed up against the car window like a child at an amusement park.
After what seemed like (and actually was) the longest taxi ride of our lives, we headed to our hotel to get changed and wipe the airport off of our faces. European hotels are always interesting, the way that they fit into the smaller side streets or span from one block to another. Nevertheless, I fell in love with the quaint little hotel that we found ourselves in. I didn’t take many pictures of the hotel, But I did manage to take a picture of my hotel breakfast which is the most important anyway, right?
Our next stop was an exciting one to say the least. The Louvre Museum isn’t just some glass triangle that you try to do the finger point thing on as pictured above. It’s a grand manument surrounded by what I can only describe as a freaking castle (sorry to all the actually cultured people out there) that specializes in taking your breath away. The feeling that I got when coming up on the space was nothing short of excitement and awe.
As we neared closer to the Louvre, I remember looking over my shoulder and seeing the Eiffel Tower in the distance. In that moment I was so happy to be finally seeing it in person. The heartbreaker; I didn’t get to visit it that day.
But the next day, bright and early, we walked our way to the Tower of my dreams. Now, befire this trip I had plenty of time to cook up inspiration for pictures and viewing the tower and something that was high on my list was to find a street with a clear view of the tower and a cute cafe, and that I did! The street that we happened upon with a flower shop on the corner immediately sent me to Heaven.
Number 2 on my Eiffel Tower bucket list was to get a ledge picture. Yep! Simply a picture on the ledge overlooking the tower. Now some things to note about this angle is that it is one, much further away than it seems and 2, it is a really high trudge to drag your body up onto. The last, and most important, thing to note is that it is apparently illegal to be on that ledge. Don’t let the 7273625179 Instagram pictures you’ve seen of people on the very same ledge fool you. The police WILL tell you to get down.
Number 3 and what I would call my least favorite would be the Bench, Ferris wheel, Tower trio. Instagram implied that if I could somehow get a good enough angle to include all three AND look cute, I’d be golden. It was in fact harder than it looked.
But Instagram photos aside, the closer and closer I got to the Eiffel Tower, the more I realized that this was a bucket list experience that continued to blow my mind the entire way through.
There are, of course, other cool things in Paris aside from the Eiffel Tower. I will admit that I was too caught up in it to catch all of these amazing other things, but here are the few that I did manage to pay attention to.
Beautiful friend Carin 
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