I arrived at the airport and my cardigan reeked with a smell no later than 1873, 76 0r 82… The trains are usually reliable but obviously on the day when we had to catch a flight, it’s 30 minutes late. But I can’t complain though, I’ll continue to hop on and off until I get caught. 80 Euros later, we landed. We went to the Anthony Station and took subway RER B to Denfert Rochereau, subway 6 to Gare Montparnasse and finally, line 12 to Volontaires. I exited the subway system to be greeted by a silver Audi TT, and then I saw it. Through the fog filled sky stood the tower, and only then I knew it was real. Bewildered.

But that’s what it does to you I guess, and you cant help it. The city had that deafening aroma with the streetlights and those raspy coughs and coffee stained dentures and ashtray’d streets…

But that’s what it does to you I guess.

It’s where love begins…

And never dies.

This is what dreams dream about, this is where love loves again.

And leaves fall slower.

It was my first time staying in a hostel. I’ve always liked the idea of it, but I never had the need to stay in one, until now. In my hostel, I met a couple from Kyrgyzstan, a landlocked country in Central Asia. It’s amazing meeting people from all over the world. Their stories were just as captivating as them themselves. They were pleasantly surprised to know of my origins as well.

With our hostel being only 15 minutes from the Eiffel Tower, we took a late night stroll to go visit it.

The tower is massive.

One thing that I didn’t know is that the tower sparkles with thousands of flashing lights for the first 5 minutes of every hour during the night. I guess when you live in the city you don’t even realize it anymore. I met a guy who has lived here his whole life and said he only visited the tower once, and that’s when his parents took him as a child.

Unfortunately, we didn’t go up the tower, but just being there was astonishing. It’s very lively around the tower; so many different things are going on at the same time.  Everybody wants a picture, just to call it his or her own. Everybody’s picture is the same. Everybody’s photo is unique.

You have people getting married,

Protestors protesting

And of course those people who want a picture of them squeezing or holding the Eiffel Tower in their palms forcing other people to get in awkward poses to get the shot.

It’s just something that you can’t walk away from without turning back for a glance once in a while. And some people never want to leave.

My first experience with the Eiffel tower included my friend and I jamming to Diplo and Friends while eating prepackaged sandwiches and cheeseburger flavored chips underneath it. Somehow, I pictured my first time at the tower to be a lot different. But I already reminisce at the modulated bass lines, crunchy leaves that seem to be everywhere, syncopated rhythms, every drop of the Tropicana antioxidant essentials, Eiffel Tower key chains and our trusty map that saved our lives more than a couple times. Good times. Couldn’t have asked for it any other way.

But we had to leave. There was so much more to explore and experience in this wonderful city. For example, The Louvre Museum. No chip so no vélib.

Unknowingly, we showed up on the first Sunday of the month and every first Sunday is free admission to the public. But there was a 30-minute wait to get in. Outside of the Museum was very packed and very active so the 30 minutes passed very quickly.

I cannot begin to explain the countless amount of amazing works of art in this museum. We saw a few well-known pieces, such as the Mona Lisa and Venus de Milo.

As well as a lot of works that I was unfamiliar with, but still enjoyed.

Talking about Museums, we also went to Musée d’Orsay. I really enjoyed the Claude Monet and Vincent Van Gogh collections. If you couldn’t tell by now, I’m pretty much an expert of taking unauthorized museum pictures.

The Notre Dame Cathedral was pretty awesome.

We knew that we had to visit the Nike store while we were here, so we did.

                              

On our way to the Nike store, we came across the Arc de Triomphe.

There was a veterans activity going on under the Arc when we visited.

It was a great experience spending a few days in this beautiful city. This picture that I captured while boarding my flight pretty much summed up my stay.