Done Worse

After a late arrival in Paris — and getting to bed at 10 pm, which is never good for me or the shortie — AJ slept in kind of late and woke up around 8 am.

When I asked him what he wanted to do in Paris, his first response was: “I want to see the Eiffel Tower.” Fair enough.

So after a breakfast that included a chocolate croissant (or pain chocolat, as they say here) we headed off on the métro to the Eiffel Tower.

I should preface all of my writing about Paris by saying that I have not been here in 12 or so years. It has changed, a lot, as one might expect. One of the biggest changes is the sheer volume of tourists. I remember there being some at my last visit, but now, OMG they’re here in droves. No matter where you go, it’s full of people and the lines are really long. I remember waiting in lines, but not like this.

Anyway, after reaching the Eiffel Tower I found out:

1. you now have to pay (!) to climb the stairs (Sidebar: in order to reduce my anger at having to pay to climb stairs, I decided to think of it like a really short term gym membership: where they only have one, very old, effective low-tech piece of equipment. While not, say Gold’s Gym,
   1. the equipment really does give you a good work out (for example, my calves were sore for days)
   2. you can’t cheat and not do the full workout … or you can’t leave
   3. you can buy chocolate cream filled sprinkle doughnuts 1/2 way through
   4. best views from a gym EVER
2. you have to wait in a line for at least an hour to pay to climb, and then later descend, an insane number of stairs.
3. Wait… what?!? Why am I doing this again??

I am proud to say that AJ was a trouper on the stairs. He complained very little about the vast quantity of stairs and requested very few breaks. I also used the age old distraction of “oh look, we’re almost there” even when really, we weren’t even close, but “oh look, only 20 flights to go” doesn’t sound nearly as encouraging.

After touring the 1st and 2nd levels, and having an educational discussion about why it gets colder and windier when you go up (note the babushka look AJ is rocking after he borrowed my scarf in an attempt to stay at least a little warm) we took the elevator to the top. It was crazy crowded with people and AJ had a fairly impressive meltdown due to exhaustion and his refusal to eat much of anything up until this point on the trip (in an act of desperation, I even purchased him the cream filled doughnut mentioned earlier. After eating half of it, he declared it was “too cream filled” — as IF — and he didn’t like it. Say what?!?)

I felt both helpless, as there’s not much you can do with a kid who really needs a nap when you’re many flights of stairs into the air on an iconic landmark being jostled by people speaking a zillion different languages, and comforted by the fact that I didn’t have to worry about him running away again, as, well, he couldn’t.

Fortunately, I did manage to get him to eat enough that we survived the rest of the trip and the stairs down. He made the very correct observation that he got far less tired going down the stairs than going up them.

After exiting the Eiffel on somewhat wobbly legs (oh the anger of my calves) and purchasing a promised (and much anticipated) Eiffel Tower souvenir from the gift shop (AJ selected the sparkliest one they had… disco Eiffel it is!) we went on a boat ride that went down the Seine to Notre Dame. AJ did not enjoy the views as much as I did, but he did enjoy playing with the giant rope on the deck of the boat.

Around halfway though our trip he shouted: “I have to poop!!” (such a demure child our boy) and he then spent a long, long time in the one tiny bathroom available on the boat (“wow mama, this is even smaller than an airplane bathroom!”), during which time a small crowd of dour-looking French moms and tiny, impeccably dressed French girls doing the potty dance amassed. Oh, the glares. I will not go into any greater details of that particular adventure, except to say that it was not as well executed as one could have desired, and the petite sink had no soap. Curse you tiny sink!

By the time we returned to our seats, other people were occupying them and the boat was returning to the dock. AJ looked around in wonder and shouted (his preferred, and frequently only way of speaking) “We’re done already?!?! Wow, I spent the whole boat ride pooping!!!”

And how.