Playlist of my Paris videos, enjoy

Here are links to all of the videos I uploaded of our Paris trip:

Au Revoir Paris--reflecting on it all

This trip has been wonderful and *just* long enough. I'm very much looking forward to going home where the only language I need to interpret are my cats' meows, where I can drink my Diet Dr.Pepper and I can jump in my car any time and head somewhere.

Of course there are far more meaningful reasons to return (family, friends, work, dance etc), but those are all a given and I love them all. I know that Molly is looking forward to her familiar surroundings and the companionship of her 90-year old sister.

This trip has challenged me to try learning a language so that I can communicate well enough abroad and I'm pleased that my pronunciation is a little better and I was able to come up with more things to say than I expected. I will continue trying to learn French so that should I ever come back, I will be prepared. I also developed the confidence to ride on two of the world's best and probably biggest subway systems. The next time I'm in Toronto, the TTC will be a breeze if I need to use it.

Indirectly this trip has challenged my mother and sister to grow their courage to travel to and from my city in order to look after the cats. They went outside their comfort zone to drive around the city doing some shopping and walking; I'm thrilled for that! It builds confidence when you face your fears, large or small and push yourself to get out there and try. As of late June we will now all be situated a short distance from one another and with their newfound confidence I can look forward to showing them more of London more often.

We've seen a lot of Paris, the city. We dabbled in some of the museum offerings but you really do need stamina to walk and climb up and down stairs to get through the best of it. Being a people-watcher, I was totally fine not immersing myself in museums, but there are a few of them I wished I could have explored. To see more of the Louvre would have been great, but it is not an accessible place and there aren't elevators or ramps to work around the marble steps leading to areas one would want to go to.

Taking the Metro is a fantastic way to get everywhere fast, but again--there are always steps going up and down in most areas which can subtract from your stamina for the day if you have any sort of knee/hip or lower back issues going on.

Here are some incidental tips I would pass on to any travelers coming to Paris for the first time:

• don't buy the umbrellas at the souvenir shops. As cute as they are, they may break the same day and they're not keen on exchanging any, and certainly not after a replacement one also breaks
• wear durable, comfortable shoes, for the love of God
• the baguettes sold in Carrefour City are a little softer than the "traditional" ones sold at artisan boulangeries, get them so you don't hurt your molars trying to chew through tough baguette
• research your French wines before coming here because it's hard to know which ones are fruity or full-bodied etc.
• bring more than one set of conversion adapters. It can be annoying to have to prioritize what needs to be charging and what needs to be in use because you only brought one set of adapters. I could have used a couple more sets of adapters and then I wouldn't have had to keep rotating my electronics to be charged, or pause their charging to use the hairdryer.
• oh yes--don't bring your nice hair dryer. It may not be compatible with the voltage here despite having the adapter to make it plug in. Look for a travel hair dryer or buy one when you're here
• don't bother with buying the expensive travel packs with your cell phone service provider. Pay $25 online to unlock your phone (watch a youtube video to learn how to do it yourself) and then when you get to France, locate your nearest Orange store and go in asking for a SIM card and plan. 
• If you've been to a local shop trying to get assistance and no one spoke any English, it helps to go home, use Google Translate to figure out what you're trying to say in French and go back the next day and show them what you wrote down or try to say it. You may encounter someone new working who may know English "a lee-tle".

I put a ton of research into this trip beforehand and was well-advised on how to handle the 'gypsies'. Today was our last day and it was the first time that there were two girls waving papers and pens at us; literally that's all that they did--they didn't try to talk to us or tell us why they wanted us to look at their paper, they just waved it at us while being slightly in our path. I knew right away about the distraction this is designed to create, but thanks to inside information, a Parisian would only look annoyed and wave a finger at them and they would back off. That's what I did today.

My small cross-body purse with lots of zippers was secure enough and I never felt the need to wear a money belt.

To everyone who razzed me about bringing my two 42" suitcases, carry-on and tote:  HA!!! I used everything I brought except for 2 shirts and the knee brace. Leaving half of one of my suitcases empty was a good idea. All the souvenirs I'm coming home with fit perfectly in that half. The weather was pretty variable going from hot and sunny, to cool and sunny, to chilly and rainy.


The apartment has been a wonderful place to live in for two weeks in a great neighborhood. I would recommend this apartment specifically to anyone, and would recommend AirBnB.com as a resource to find and book these accommodations. It's so much nicer to live amongst the people than to spend two weeks in a hotel.


We are already checked in for our flight tomorrow, mirroring the exact things we did to get here. Blacklane car service will pick us up, we'll land in Toronto and shuttle back to the Hampton Inn and the next day we'll shuttle over so Gran can fly out to Dartmouth and Robert Q will pick me up and bring me back home.

My wonderful sister has kindly done some preliminary grocery shopping and plans to have dinner ready for when I get home :)


Merci mon soeur et maman! Je vous aime!

Paris, à la prochaine. Bon nuit!

My visit with Jim Morrison, Edith Piaf and Oscar Wilde

It's our second last day in Paris and both Molly and I were pretty exhausted from the whirlwind, roller-coaster trip to London. I sensed that she may feel like hanging around the flat for the day recuperating but although I was somewhat tired, I needed to make the trip to Père Lachaise Cemetery where there are many notable and famous resting places.

Most importantly, I needed to visit Jim.

When I was about 17-18 I was fascinated with The Doors, their story and that of Jim Morrison. I was experimenting with poetry at the time and influenced by their lyrics. When I was 18 and visited Oceanside (California), I had a chance to visit Los Angeles. My first priority was to walk on Venice Beach and visit the Hollywood Bowl before any Hollywood touristy stuff. I distinctly recall driving into L.A. around 9am with the morning sunshine filtering through thick smog as the car approached the familiar skyline. In the back seat, I had "L.A. Woman" just starting to play on my cd player. It was a perfect moment.

Jim Morrison was a charismatic, enigmatic rock (& blues) singer/performer who wrote some fantastic songs and poetry. Like several other talented people who were presented, plied and subdued with excess or who used what was available to cope with sudden fame and wealth, it is sad to me that he died in a bathtub in a Paris hotel.I recall having a poster of his grave in my bedroom. I found it beautiful.

I was glad for this time to myself today to be completely absorbed in my own personal mission.

Just one of the beautiful pathways lined with mausoleums

My confidence in using the Metro made it an easy 15 minute trip to the East of Paris and I was directed to the Administration office to pick up a map of the cemetery. The map is a paper print-out with notable graves marked as numbers on each zone in the cemetery. The cemetery is huge by the way--110 acres.

It was raining. The kind of rain where you need an umbrella, but there's no wind and it's not bouncing up off the ground. It was the absolute best weather to visit a 211 year old cemetery. The main pathways are all cobble-stoned and only in some areas are the cobble-stones smaller and a little easier to traverse. A good portion of the cemetery is uphill and there are many winding paths and intersections.

Blossoming trees in the cemetery

I knew that Jim's grave was not immediately noticeable and you had to look for it. As I made my way a second time through the section I thought he might be in, I turned a corner and saw a grey metal barricade linked to a couple of others and knew right away that I would find his grave there.

I was the only one there. I almost started to well up a little bit and snuck through an opening in the barrier to get a little closer to the site but a cemetery security person happened to be silently lurking nearby and asked me to step back behind the barricade. I apologized and stepped around it and stood for a while looking at it and remembering what he brought to those teen years of mine and how I was shaped by discovering his music and poetry.

Edith Piaf

Moving on, I took some general interest photos trying to capture the beauty and history of this cemetary and later on was asked by a girl carrying a camera if I'd found Edith Piaf's grave yet. I was in fact in that area and together we Googled on my phone to get an idea of which markers were nearby and we were able to find her headstone. We were her only visitors at that time and each took some photos and went our separate ways after she had directed me to where I could find Oscar Wilde.

Oscar Wilde

The time had slipped by and suddenly I realized it was 5pm. I must have been there a good 2 hours carefully walking on wet cobble-stones protecting my camera from the rain under my umbrella while clutching an ever-dampening paper map. Paris rush hour was something to take into consideration, so I started making my way back to where I thought the entrance was. I walked for about 10 minutes before realizing that I was having great difficulty getting oriented; thankfully my phone was charged and I used Google maps' GPS tool to get myself down to the principal entrance and back to the Metro.













                                       Goodbye Jim. xo.

Our visit to London-UK, travel ordeals and the kindness of strangers

With a two week stay in Paris, and London only a 2-hr train ride away, it seemed like a fantastic opportunity to visit London over the course of two days (less than two days really). Tuesday morning we left Paris on the super-fast Eurostar and arrived at St. Pancras Station for 10am GMT. Using the android app for the London Underground, we had purchased the Oyster card and then rode the Underground to St. James's Park where we got off and found our hotel just around the corner.

The Sanctuary House Hotel is situated above a Fuller's Ale & Pie pub and is a gorgeous little boutique hotel. They kindly allowed us to store the bags we brought with us so that we could fit in some sightseeing before actually gaining access to our room. In this time, we walked around the corner to Westminster Abbey and stood in line for tickets. The Abbey is stunning--I so wish I could've taken photos to post because it is really just an incredible place. To walk amongst the tombs of kings and queens is such a strange feeling.

After the Abbey, we took a bus to St. Paul's Cathedral which I had wanted to see since Princess Diana married Prince Charles there in 1981. All the buses are red and doubledecker, and I was so bemused by seeing all the classic red telephone boxes! At St. Paul's Cathedral, I was constantly looking up at the arched and dazzling ceilings and again--could not take photos. We went through the Crypt in the basement as well. Given a choice between the two, I would revisit Westminster Abbey in a heartbeat.

We headed back to the hotel to fully check-in and then had lunch in the pub. I would also recommend The Sanctuary House Hotel to anyone who wants to stay in London-UK because it is cozy, it's extremely central and they look after you.

Next on the list was the London By Night sightseeing tour to start at 7pm from Victoria Grosvenor Gardens. We found our way there and ended up being the only two on the bus, however at 7pm it's not really "night" and I was kind of hoping for an "illuminations" style tour showing London in its lit-up glory.




If you've held any disdain towards humanity today, let this portion of the post renew your faith that there are good people out there.

In preparing for this trip, I did a lot of research and thanks to Wolter's World on Youtube, became aware of what to do when you lose or have your passport stolen. After educating myself on that and other travel security tips from his channel, I had made a detailed itinerary available to several family members, including the names and numbers of the hotels we would be staying at and scanned images of each piece of identification we both had, stored safely on the internet.

We rode the London By Night tour bus and got off at the stop for the London Eye. According to the schedule, the driver was to return back to the same stop at 9:49pm but just in case we talked to him before we left and said we would be waiting for him when he came back around.

Our ride on the Eye was great fun, but it had gotten quite cold in the evening; colder than what we were prepared for. We wasted as much time as we could drinking hot chocolate and hanging out in souvenir stores until we headed back to the bus stop hoping that his bus had remained empty and maybe he would be there early. We hung out in a bus shelter (it's really just a half-shelter) and when his time came and went, we started to wonder. It was then 10:20pm before we angrily set off towards the next Underground station a short distance away.

Cold and tired, we had to make a connection to another train, so we stepped off and looked at which direction we needed to go, just then the doors shut on the train we got off of and it was at that moment that Molly looked at me and said "oh God, where's my purse??"---the train left. 

My mind started to race, panic and try to problem-solve at the same time; her purse had all her cash, credit card, all her ID and passport in it. We went up to the nearest security person and told them of the situation. He brought us into a control room where there was a dispatcher. She called ahead to each station and alerted the other security personnel who would then each board the train and look through the cars for the purse. Of course everyone reported back that no bags were found or turned in. She said that her next step was to call the British Transport Police and then handed the phone over to Molly.

I started bawling because in preparing for this situation I had heard that as soon as a passport was reported, it was invalidated and had to be replaced by the Embassy which I believe is not an immediate process. Later, once I had my wits about me, I realized that it was only the passport-owner who could report the passport missing to the Canadian Embassy and it's at that point that it would be invalidated.

While Molly was on the phone with the BTP giving them details, I was a sobbing mess and the dispatch lady was very kind and caring and tried to calm me down. All I could think of was how expensive this was about to become for Molly and that we may not be able to leave London, UK to get back to France to get back to Canada on time. Molly's Oyster card (the one we used to use the Underground each ride) was also in her purse, so they kindly just let her through so we could continue the ride back to the hotel.
I have to credit my grandmother for being cool as a cucumber during all of this kerfuffle, believing that it would work out.

Our plan was to go to Canada House for 9am the next day to start the process and I tried to get something done before going to sleep because I was still on "red alert" mode. I left Molly in the room to get settled and I came back out to the reception desk with my dead cell phone which I hadn't been able to charge because I didn't have the appropriate adapter to work with English outlets--I thought the ones that I had for France would work there. The person at the desk was far more helpful than the person we had earlier in the day and as I was explaining the situation and started to ask for help to print off the copies of her ID, I was sobbing at the desk. He kindly let me charge my phone using his own USB charger and kept my phone overnight to charge it fully. But it was just then that the phone rang and he looked up and said "Molly B?"

I blinked---"yes??" and he passed the phone to me. My Uncle Mike (her son) was on the other end letting me know that he had been contacted by a lady named Jane who had picked up the purse and wanted to get in touch with us. Fortunately Molly kept a little contact book in her purse in case of emergencies and this is how she got the phone number. How serendipitous that I was at the reception desk when the call came in trying to deal with the problem.

I called Jane and she was extremely nice and she had explained that she didn't want to turn it in to the train staff because she was worried that all of Molly's money and ID would not be left in the purse once we were able to get it.

Jane had said that her husband worked at the British Council, right behind Canada House and they were thinking of leaving it there the next day so we could pick it up there. I asked her if we could pick it up from him at his work instead because if the purse was dropped off at Canada House with a passport in it, they might consider that passport as "lost" (since it had been in someone else's possession and turned in) and then we may have had problems. So her husband agreed to do that. Molly, who had been pretty level-headed the whole time taking it in stride was thrilled and thankful to know that someone trustworthy had picked up her purse. I went back out to the same fellow at reception and asked if the pub was open downstairs because we really needed some wine before bed. He said that it wasn't, but he took me down anyways and then helped me pick a nice wine and added the wine to the room bill.

This morning, we took a cab to the British Council and picked up her purse with all of her cash, ID and other items in it. I also got my cell phone from the new reception person this morning since it had been tucked safely away in a drawer once it was done charging.

I can't even describe the relief!


Soldiering on with the rest of our plans, we turned back towards the Admiralty Arch and walked up The Mall to Buckingham Palace hoping to see the changing of the guards. We had a great position and the police were wrangling tourists behind barricades preparing for the parade and the ceremony when a light drizzle then turned to "rain". The ceremony was cancelled--meaning that there would be no big procession with instruments being played. However I did see them marching to the side entrance of the Palace and saw sentries standing at their sheltered posts.

From there we took a taxi back to the hotel to dry off and check out. Then we rode the Underground to Tower Hill to visit the London Tower. By then it was cold, raining and windy and after seeing the Crown Jewels, we decided to leave because neither of us was happy about being cold and wet. I know that we missed a lot but it also looked like a place with lots of stairs and Molly had already been doing a lot of stair climbing. I hope to go back someday soon anyhow to fully take in London and that will be on my list on a sunnier day.

From Tower Hill we rode to Bond Street to visit Selfridges, specifically because we've both been watching the BBC series and because we wanted to be indoors in the shopping district. Selfridges was fantastically huge and expensive with an overpoweringly fragrant first impression as you enter through the old revolving doors.

Anything you see in a Vogue magazine was there. Prada clothes hung in glass cases! It was immense and sensational. I saw a mother dressed in haute couture pushing her stroller around with bags on her arms.

Once we finished at Selfridges, we decided to take our last ride on the Underground before the real rush hour hit and left for King's Cross/St. Pancras Station where we arrived with plenty of time to sit and have a beer and reflect on the madness of the last 30 hours.

On our way home to Paris we saw a huge double rainbow as the sun set and we are now cozy and warm with a red wine glow for each of us as we look forward to a real night of rest and a very late morning which of course should involve the reward of croissants.

Mid-day observations and comparisons

Unfortunately last night's dancing has aggravated a hip condition I have going on right now so I am limited today in how much I can walk. We had to shift gears and decided instead on having lunch at the 50's diner across the street and to go shopping at the mall just nearby as we both decided to buy rubber booties and not have to deal with soggy sponge-feet again since there is some rain yet to fall before we leave.

As well, I need to conserve whatever hip-strength I have for tomorrow's journey to London, UK! I've fervently been looking forward to this particular interlude in the trip : ) We have a lot of cool stuff to do and see in a short span of less than two days.

Since we'll be turning in early tonight, I thought I would use this time to draw some comparisons and make some observations about Paris vs. home.

Here's what we haven't seen or encountered in Paris:

• ugly road signs
• dollar stores
• convenience stores (as you and I know them) but maybe in other neighborhoods with small produce stands outside
• larger "one-stop shopping" stores such as Walmart, Shopper's Drug Mart & Loblaws--except for Monoprix but it sells some clothing and housewares..not a lot.
• dog poo everywhere like the rumors say
• Dr. Pepper (or Diet)
• Crown Royal (also, their "Mickeys" are packaged and hung on pegs behind the cash desks)
• hardware stores or anything selling large equipment
• hardly any shopping malls for a city this size
• no tall apartment buildings due to very old rules for buildings in Paris
• large grocery stores--instead there are small grocery stores everywhere
• refrigerated eggs---they keep theirs on shelves around the corner from the refrigerator aisle
• North American wine--if they do have it, it is probably in a specialty shop
• food trucks, no hot dog stands
• no "sub sauce" at Subway (what the hell??)
• no smelly metro stations
• no rude waiters

Stuff they have that we don't have:

• Coca-Cola Green (sweetened with Stevia)
• touch-screen kiosks to order food in McDonald's
• yogurt in little glass jars with tin foil lids
• a fantastic and comprehensive public transit system including the bike rental system
• pharmacies every hundred meters or so
• Boulangeries
• mostly cobble-stoned areas, the difference being whether they're old or new, big or small
• traffic stop lights both at eye level and hanging over the intersection
• public toilet stations every few hundred meters (not porta-potties). There's actually an app to find the nearest one
• free prescription drugs, hence pharmacies on every corner
• roaming groups of police officers and French army carrying machine guns and other types of security around monuments
• a police department (prefecture) in every arrondissement
• roasted chestnuts as a typical sidewalk fare you can buy
• paper money of different lengths and widths depending on denomination
• bottled soft drinks served at restaurants (for the most part--that's why they're expensive, ie: 4Euros)
• red wine by the keg in restaurants--if you ask for the house wine, you get it drawn from a big keg. I'm not aware of any Canadian restaurants that do the same
• French-made movies and French actors on all of the movie posters. I haven't seen any movies that look familiar with familiar faces advertised
• Self-Coiff : a budget hair cutting salon where the prices are reduced if you dry or comb/brush out your own hair
• their tap water tastes great!
• signs warning you to watch out for pickpockets
• luxurious taxi cabs who offer to charge your cell phone for you and offer free WiFi
• tobacco pouches to roll their own cigarettes (while sitting at the bistro with their friends who are smoking)

Here are stereotypes we have come across more than once every day:

• riding bicycles 
• a sense of fashion and carefree self-expression in their clothing choices
• men wearing scarves and cool spectacles
• smoking! oh God...so many smokers (I saw a guy waiting for his gym to open having a smoke)
• most people walking their dogs are walking small dogs or teacup dogs...including pouffy poodles
• wearing stripes
• baguette carrying & eating
• packed bistrots on every street until late at night
• parks packed with people laying around eating and drinking and enjoying the nice weather
• wine being cheaper than pop...in fact I bought a bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon for 2.89Euros

A very soggy but musical day in Paris

Today's plan was to go and explore the Marche Aux Puces-Saint Ouen (antique flea market), home of the famous and campy Chez Lousiette restaurant tucked away amongst the vendors.

The metro ride there took us through Gare Du Nord train station, so we lucked out in being able to do a dry run of the early morning ride to board the Eurostar for London this coming Tuesday.

As warned, to get to Marche Aux Puces, you need to walk through a gauntlet of tented vendors--the type who sell clothes, shoes and sunglasses for a cheap price. We did find our way to Chez Louisette for lunch and it was everything I heard and hoped it would be:

• campy/kitchy decor
• French singers accompanied by a synthesizer and accordion
• mediocre food at high prices

It was so worth the trip! The Marche Aux Puces itself is a group of   markets, each with their own entrance, they each look a bit different from one another. It is the place to go to find large antique items for homes or offices that's for sure. We didn't stay too long and as we decided to go, the rain started pouring down. The tented vendors were running everywhere trying to protect their wares and our feet got completely soaked so that each step we took felt like a wet sponge in each shoe.

Once home, I decided to go to the West Coast Swing dance over in Ivry-Sur-Seine at L'Orchidee as recommended by some Parisian WCS dancers I had been put in touch with. Earlier in the week I was wondering about how to get there and was apprehensive about the walk from the metro station to the studio and as well walking back to the apartment if I returned by metro. Instead, I decided to splurge on two cab rides and it was so worth it! By the way, G7 Taxis are beautiful cars (on the way back home it was a Mercedes-Benz) and they can charge your cell phone for you while you ride. It was a wonderful, sweaty evening of event-quality dancing with the best DJ I've heard.

Upon arriving home, I am  super-hungry and I was irritated that I hadn't thought to pick up a fresh baguette on our way home. Instead I ate mushroom soup and wine.

I will know better next time to *always* have a baguette in the kitchen :)

A day for a meander and a night to go up the Eiffel tower

Today I slept in until 10:30am. Well actually the last few days it's been that pattern : )
So this is what a vacation feels like!

I'm glad that when I ate breakfast at the Hampton Inn on the 19th that I shamelessly pocketed 5 mini-boxes of cereal at the all-you-can-eat breakfast buffet. I've been having those for breakfast several days now, as well as gleefully enjoying coconut-flavored yogurt that comes in little glass pots with gold foil lids that you peel off. I'm saving all the glass pots to make some sort of use out of them back home.

We finally figured out how to heat something up on the stove--these people who own the apartment seem to like their fancy appliances that are not intuitive whatsoever. We felt like happy cavemen when the element started to warm up so we could enjoy soup for lunch. We are still astonished that the laundry machine takes 2.5 hours to do a load of laundry.

As well--buying milk at the grocery store is completely confusing. Some of it's refrigerated, some of it isn't but the bottles look the same. They're stocked in 6-packs that are shrink-wrapped and if you want an individual bottle from the pack you just tear open the pack and customers pick their milk jugs out of it. There's "demi-creme" and other confusing names but nothing seems to be 1% or 2% etc. I will have to google the milk situation. I think I might have accidentally bought a lactose free dairy product since I neglected to notice that it doesn't say "lait" anywhere on it.

Today I googled the Top 5 passages in France and noticed that Passage du Grand Cerf (pronounced as "sare") was just down the block. So I showed Gran the exciting tool that is Google Streetview to help us visualize our route and we took a walk, arm-in-arm down to Passage du Grand Cerf. It was okay, very pretty to look at but not as lively as Passage du Jouffroy (pronunced "zh-oh-froy"). However when we came out the other end we found that across the alley was another Passage, so we went through that and when we came out the end of that, suddenly we were in the midst of a very popular, mostly-pedestrian market street called Rue du Montorgueil. Here we cris-crossed from store to store, bought the most succulent croissants I've had yet, enjoyed watching some Brasilian Capoeira buskers in the street and just had an amazing time feeling that sense of discovery. It is primarily a food market street with lots of meat, fish, cheese stores, bakeries, of course a couple of pharmacies, bistros, toy stores etc.

Later in the afternoon, I took a walk over to Les Forums des Halles which is a mall that is primarily below street level and extremely confusing. It's also where we can catch the Metro and RER trains.


Tonight was our night to go up the Eiffel Tower. I had actually booked the tickets up the tower a few weeks ago when the 11pm slot was all that was left. I had been wondering over the last few days what the best way to spend our time was to ensure that we were in the area for our 11pm elevator ride. We ended up booking a custom 1-hour tour with our favorite driver, Vincent of 4-Roues Sous 1Parapluie. It was technically his night off, but when he was contacted by his company and they explained who we were, he gladly agreed to drive us around. I thought it would be best to have Vincent, not only because he's a delicous Frenchman with sparkling blue eyes and an engaging personality, but because..............I forget now.  Oh yes--because he would already know where he has taken us.

He took us over on the East side (10th and 11th arrondissements) where there are more immigrant communities and along the Canal St. Martin. He drove us past where he lives, along past Pere Lachaise Cemetary etc and we saw another side of Paris with lots of graffiti and people who hardly ever see a vintage Citroen driving tourists in Paris through.  When I mentioned the time, he started back towards the other side of the city where the Eiffel tower is and under the very same tunnel where Princess Diana died in that horrible car crash (August 31, 1997) against one of the supporting beams.

It started to rain a little bit and there was no time for him to pull over and put the cover over the car, so I opened my newly-bought, cheesy "Paris" umbrella and held it up over the open top of the car---just like the logo shows!

Once at the tower, we had a very short and fast-moving line to stand in and we ascended to the second floor. We got out and looked around the city, took some pictures and a little video and enjoyed the view. If you ever go up the Eiffel tower, go to the very top as I'm sure the view would be even more stunning. Since it was late, we didn't stay long or seek out any historical education while we were up there--the 2nd floor is a little underwhelming but still an experience to enjoy.

On our way home, Molly said she enjoyed it more than she expected to, but raved more about the tour through the area of Paris no tourists seek to check out.