The Tower

I awoke shortly before 10am but not without prompting from my friend. I'm sure that otherwise permitted I would have missed half of the day for sleeping in. I was still tired.

My eyes fluttered and suddenly I remembered where I was. As quickly as a shot, I jumped out if bed and raced to the window. There she was - the beautiful Eiffel Tower, just beyond my window. It hadn't gone away in the night. I had really seen it. I truly was there, in Paris, in person. I had seem this dream come true. I was there, within walking distance of the one city I had longed my whole life to see.

As my friend went to get some croissants and orange juice for a breakfast, I got dressed and ready to go. I knew I would spend a portion of the day alone since it was a business trip for my roommate du jour. I was perfectly ok with that. Nothing much could happen to a person in a city as glorious as Paris!

Our first destination was the tower, certainly. Being that close, I could practically feel it calling to me from the room. It was only a short walk and a bridge over the river Seine and there she stood in all her magnificent glory, that wondrous structure Inspiring artists, poets and composers world wide to create some of the greatest masterpieces known to man. I felt tears begin to sting my eyes. I knew it would get stronger as I got closer.

Suddenly and quite inexplicably, the years of Spanish I took in school came flooding into my memory. Oh how I wished they had been French lessons instead! Quite to my dismay, what little French I did know was getting so mottled with the Spanish I barely spoke that I realized I would probably be better off speaking Japanese than I would anything else, and most of that was gone at this point.

Well, I thought to myself, if I need or want anything, I can point and say the french polite word for please - if only I could remember it!

I was so deep in thought that I barely noticed suddenly that I was standing beneath the heart of the tower. There it was, towering over me and leaving me uncertain of what to say, only being able to mutter "wow" over and over.

All my life I had wanted to see the Eiffel Tower and walk through Paris, and here I stood in that moment, beneath my destination in all it's magnificence.


I made it to Paris!!