Eiffel Tower and French Fireworks
During this last week, like rest of my time in Paris, I got to experience some amazing parts of this city.
At the beginning of the week we saw an amazing park with a playground, I as a twenty year old was very jealous of. We also saw the most beautiful and outrageously over the top building when we explored the opera house. The next day we got to see the Eiffel Tower and climb to the top of it, with lots of help from elevators. Seeing these buildings, structures and parks was an exciting experience because they are some of the most famous spots in all of Paris. The Opera House was built to be seen and for the people in it to be seen (also to gossip and do other pg-13 things in) and being there seeing architecture that screams look at me was fantastic. It felt like I was a part of something bigger and older than myself, or our class or this time period.
Something else that made me feel that way was watching the fireworks on Bastille day. Sitting out and eating lots of food with the Eiffel Tower in view was amazing. It was really spectacular to watch fireworks in a country where I don’t speak the language because they are so universal. Standing there for the almost hour the show went on left me with a sense of connection to Paris I didn’t have before. That same feeling of celebration I have when I see fireworks at home I had for a country I’ve only been in for two weeks and I knew that was something really unique I got to be a part of.
Doing one of the most touristy things a person can in Paris, going to the Eiffel Tower and celebrating Bastille day in the same week was so interesting. Almost everyone who visits Paris is going to have a picture at the top of the Eiffel Tower. But how many of them are going to say they got to celebrate France’s independence by watching fireworks come off that same Tower in the same week, I’m guessing not many. Realizing that has made me so thankful and I’m so excited for the second half of the trip!