Early flight out of Girona meant taking a cab to the bus station and a bus to the airport, then getting through security and boarding the plane… all at an unseemly hour in the morning… Adios Barcelona, bonjour Pari! Well, that would have been the case… except we were flying into Beauvais, the French equivalent of say, Manchester airport instead of Logan… smaller airport, no big deal, yes? False. Perché? Well for one thing, dealing with a smaller airport would generally involve actually landing in said airport, not having to land in Lille, somewhere around 100mi away from Beauvais… luckily, K and I had no plans or time-pressing reservations, and could spend an extra three hours traveling… on a bus… plugged into my ipod, listening to the best of the Temptations, and falling in and out of sleep…Once we finally made it to Beauvais (yes, the French countryside is gorgeous, but there was no way I was going to be enjoying any of that when I was tired, travel-gross, and counting the minutes until I got to the Louvre!!!) K and I had to hop on another bus to get to Paris… luckily, this one was only an hour… but really? It felt like a day… so, rather than arriving in Paris mid-morning, birght-eyed and bushy-tailed, K and I arrived tired, slightly dazed, and rather tense from spending so much time in cramped spaces… c’est la vie… we headed off to the metro to find where we were staying…
The French metro is a lot like the Spanish metro, except for the fact that you have to buy a ticket every time you want to take it (there are other ways of doing it, but for such a short period of time, and for two people who enjoy walking around, it was not worth it… no Charlie cards here!)… anyway, we finally made it to our room (with some help from a random elderly French woman who understood my flailing and Italian questioning) and collapsed for a bit… neither one of us slept, but we both decided to take a deep breath before heading out…
That didn’t last long… we were in Paris, and we hadn’t really eaten anything (an overwhelming theme on traveling days it seems…) so we changed, grabbed our bags and cameras, and headed back to the metro… plan? Eiffel Tower.
So we found our way to the Eiffel Tower area, and found a. and ATM, and b. a little (not too overpriced) café… okay, so you always hear all of these horror stories about how rude the French are, and how much they hate Americans, but the waiter was the sweetest! He asked us if we spoke French, to which, we both bashfully replied, NO!, to which he replied, well, tonight, only French! As sweet as the sentiment was, we both knew that that would be a hopelessly futile endeavor, so we happened to mention, “ma parliamo italiano!” So he spoke to us in Italian, and even bade us farewell with a painfully Italian saying (that I thought I’d escape for a bit) “Ciao bella!” Overall? Wonderful introduction to France!But, it was onward, and upward for K and I, determined to get our tourist photos with Paris’s most famous steely monument.
So, we made it to the Eiffel Tower, and before I knew it we were climbing an endless staircase through gusts of icy wind. Anyone who knows me, knows I’m not the biggest fan of heights, especially when those heights include a 360o view of the city splayed at your feet. 
But, I must admit, the higher we got, the more in awe I became. Once at the top, I’m not sure if the view, the wind, or the staggering height took my breath away. Not only could you see the buildings and monuments, but you could see the river, and the twinkling lights that made the entire scene appear to be a brilliant backdrop for some romantic duet in any number of Romantic operas… 
My brain chose O Soave Fanciulla from Puccini’s La Boheme (I know, I know, you can take the girl out of Italy…) and subsequently switched to a stream of the soundtrack to La vie en Rose… Ah, Paris, J’taime.
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