Today was a rather chill day. What can I say? It’s exhausting traveling around, having great food, drinking excellent wine, and touring beautiful landmarks. I did one thing of note today; the most important thing that you can do when visiting Paris. The very epitome of “here you are, in Paris, France, bienvenue”.

I went to the Eiffel Tower.

I don’t know how or why I waited so long to do this. Before I got to Paris, I had grand plans to drop my things off at the Airbnb and then spend the whole day drinking a bottle of wine at in the Trocadero Gardens.

And then I got here, and suddenly it became the waiting game.

I almost didn’t see the tour at first. Calli and I were headed down the street, we reach a corner, and I was too busy waiting for the little green man on the traffic light to tell me I could walk, when Calli nudged me. There she was, peaking through the trees, visible from the second floor onward.

I just laughed.

The Eiffel Tower has sort of become my green-light-at-the-end-of-the-dock. I’ve wanted to visit this city and see this tour for as long as I could remember. Yet, the tower managed to sneak up on me. I caught my first real glimpse when I least expected it. I wonder if this is how Gatsby felt when he reunited with Daisy. Surprised, shocked, elated. Wondering why the hell it even matters so much in the first place but deciding it’s okay to love something that’ll never love you back.

We spent an hour sitting in the Champs de Mars reading. There was a group of guys playing French club music pretty loud to our left and there was a boy and a girl singing English songs like “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” to our right. It was perfect.

After an hour of reading Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park (who am I kidding, it took me an hour to read the first chapter and it’s only a couple pages. I kept stopping and staring at the tower.)— we decided to head for lunch at Cafe Castell. We both had omelets with tomato, onion, ham, and potato, with a side of fries. Calli had water and I had rose, because why not? The cafe was really nice but it felt a little touristy. Which is fine, because I am a tourist.

Before we left our waiter told me my French was pretty good. Unfortunately, I couldn’t understand him the first two times he said it in French, so by the third time he switched to English. The irony is not lost on me. I thanked him, and said that it wasn’t very good at the moment.

Calli and I hit up a couple souvenir shops (I don’t smoke but I bought an Eiffel Tower ashtray that comes with a matching lighter, woop woop!), then returned to the Eiffel. We walked around under the base and the beautiful gardens that are currently under some renovations to prepare for the upcoming Olympics. I have a kink in my neck from looking up so much.

Afterwards we made our way home and stopped at Monoprix to pick up some basics; laundry detergent, silverware, bread, cheese, Reisling… We opted to have a relaxing dinner in, so I cooked up some tomato-basil pesto and we threw Gilmore Girls on the TV.

There’s something stupidly fascinating and fun about doing something as mundane as making dinner at home and getting laundry detergent when you’re in a new place. Or is that just me? Am I the only one who likes pretending this is ‘just my life’? Casually boiling water? In Paris? Or buying child size cutlery because it’s less expensive than the real thing? Also who stole the silverware from this Airbnb?

Anyways, I’ve had more than enough wine with my dinner this evening and I should probably go to bed at a reasonable, Parisian hour.

Jusqu’à la prochaine tasse de café!

-Ken