It’s one of THE most famous buildings in the world.  And back in 1889 when it was built for the World Fair, Parisians hated it.  They thought it was ugly… it was a 1,000 ft grey iron structure that had zero purpose.  But, that was part of the point.  It was an engineering feat!  Plus, because of the radio tower at the top of the Eiffel Tower, it then later warned Paris of the Nazi invasion, so after that, they decided they could keep it :-)  Paris, I love you… along with all of your idiosyncrasies.

It doesn’t matter how many times I go to Paris, I LOVE going to the Eiffel Tower.  I don’t even have to travel up to to any of its levels, I just love being in the city and seeing it and walking by it and under it.  It’s come to be THE most symbolic piece of Paris so of course it has to be a part of each trip!  On our honeymoon, Ben and I decided to venture over there after visiting the Louvre.  However, being on vacation, we didn’t think about it being a Saturday… at sunset.  To say it was crowded when we got there would be a crazy understatement.  So, we people watched for a while.  We saw a guy propose (we think).  We watched a group of in-line skaters meet up.  And we saw the line for those who had reservations.  BONUS!  So, when we got back to the apartment, my inquisitive husband looked online for where to get tickets and we reserved our time for Monday so that we’d be at the top around sunset.

Since we did not go up on the tower that Saturday night, we celebrated our one week of being married by sitting on a bench as the sun went down, watching the Eiffel Tower come to life with its lights.  And yes, it was as romantic as it sounds.  I still couldn’t really believe that we were in Paris.  And we were MARRIED!  Some days I still can’t believe it :-)  Being married to your best friend is quite possibly one of the most wonderful things about being on this side of heaven.  I’m not gonna lie.

Plus, you get to watch people together!  I’m sure I’ve looked like this lady more times than I realize!

I hadn’t thought much about this picture until I turned it black and white just now.  And I love it.
The funny thing is that I was trying to get a shot of the people on rollerblades.  Clearly I missed. And clearly the girl in the black coat noticed that I missed.

I know some of you are rolling your eyes at the cheesiness of this post already, but it doesn’t bother me.  It was our honeymoon!  And we’re married!  We can be as cheesy as we like :-)
And… this is one of my favorite pictures of us.  And believe it or not, it’s a self portrait!

The one above on the right and the one below are from the bench I mentioned earlier.  I even came up with a song that night!  It’s amazing how talented I am ;-)

And then, Monday afternoon rolled around.  We left the apartment, took the metro and RER to the Eiffel Tower,
showed them our tickets (on my phone!), and walked straight to the elevator.  NO wait.  LOVED it.

Sadly, we didn’t make it to the top of the Arc de Triomphe. The night we went, they ended up closing early!  I guess we’ll just have to go back…

I ADORE the bridges in Paris.  Like, really, I love them.

Sometimes I forget how cold it was when we were there.

God will never cease to amaze me with His creativity.

When we went inside (to warm up and start heading down), we wandered around to see how far we were from various parts of the world.
And then we saw Asuncion and the Paraguay flag!  It’s where Ben was born so we sort of got a picture of him with it.

Down on the second level we got a few more shots of the tower and Paris at night…

The one on the left was as we were leaving. The one on the right is when we came back with my tripod the night before we left.

And I just noticed that in the bottom left, above the building in the distance, there’s a streak of light that might have been an airplane!

And, you’ve seen the one below of us before, but I just love it :-)

Happy Wednesday, everyone!