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traveling to Bayeux on the evening we landed in Paris, after a
much-delayed flight from Washington, D.C.

I stand transfixed, barely aware of anything else besides
myself and the lights. But soon enough, Meghan asks if I’m
ready to leave. We think the rest of our group is waiting on the
steps where we had watched Paris get dark—it had been too
hazy to see the sun set but the panoramic view of Paris in its
intricacy was still breathtaking and calming all at once.

I ask for another moment to continue watching the tower
light up, but before the tower is finished with its hourly five
minutes of glory, I concede that it’s time to head down. We
leave our perch, the Eiffel Tower still flashing behind us.

It’s a little difficult to find our group at the landing, since
it’s become so dark. Some of my classmates are there while
others are missing. It turns out that another, larger portion of
our group had also climbed the hill a little further to see the
lights, and they have not yet returned. The group that’s
already waiting on the landing asks us how the lights were.

“It was like New Year’s on steroids!” I call out with sheer
pleasure, the New Year’s Eve ball drop in Times Square on TV
from a little more than a week before still fresh in my
memory.

⁂

Once all sixteen members of our group have reunited, we
construct a game plan for the rest of the evening. The night is
still young, but some people in our group are more tired than
others, so we divvy up and plan to head our separate ways.
One small group will return to the hotel, while my larger
group will go climb the Eiffel Tower—something that none of
us have done yet and that many of us deem an essential way
to spend our final night in Paris.

After we all take a half hour to do as we please at the
bottom of the hill, those of us who still have the energy for a
night of adventure meet up and hit the metro once again.

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