thoroughly jostled

 

 I hope everyone had a gratitude-filled Thanksgiving. I, for one, am grateful that we're taking a little break from our travels, so I finally have some time to sit down and blog about Paris.

Let's begin with the Eiffel Tower. I was unexpectedly super impressed with the thing. I knew that Paris had so many spectacular things to see and discover, so the Eiffel Tower was really not on the top of my list of things-I-must-do-while-in-Paris. As it turned out, we could see the thing from our apartment and it was well within jogging distance, so I ended up spending quite a bit of time marveling at it. As it were, I ended up falling in love with it.

 

I fell so in love with the stunning structure that it quickly became a must-do, and I insisted we make it to the top with my grandparents. I mean, how could they leave Paris without going to the top of the Eiffel Tower? That would be preposterous! 

And so we went. And we had our giant jogging stroller with us, assuming they would have a place to check it. They handed us a nice little tag to put on it at the ticket counter, which we figured was meant for taking to the check-your-stroller-here-spot. We filed through the lines and waited and waited and asked one of the attendants where we should put the stroller. He just pointed to the elevator. Hmm. That's when we took a closer look at the little tag and realized it said, "If you leave your stroller anywhere, it will be confiscated and destroyed." So, there we were, smashed into tiny lines with a giant stroller. It was like trying to navigate a Hummer through an ant maze. Rather uncomfortable, to say the least.

The discomfort grew as we approached the top. It got colder. The lanes got smaller. Our patience grew thinner. At one point, Tony physically grabbed a man and gently guided him to where he needed to stand in order to be out of the Hummer's way. Even Grandpa, who weeks earlier declared that he never likes to push people in line, was shoving people left and right. It was not our best moment. 

We were, as Tony so perfectly described it, "thoroughly jostled" as we made our decent from the top where we couldn't see very much due to the evening foggy mist that suddenly decided to join us. As we waited in line on the bottom tier, the tower began to light up. Once again, we found ourselves gazing in awe at the wondrous spectacle while laughing hysterically at the whole situation. 

 

 All relationships involve a few growing pains, I suppose.

Which means that, yes, I am still in love with this tangled, iron mess.