Page 32 - Contrast2015

some more to go through security, and still more to board and
ride the elevator. As the elevator ascends, the tower tells us
that another hour has passed. It’s round three of the lights,
which means it’s eight o’clock.

We are blinded when we exit the elevator to the Eiffel
Tower’s balcony. A few of us comment that we’re glad we
don’t have epilepsy. Still, I am nevertheless intimidated and a
bit stupefied by the flashing intensity of the LED lights, which
only continue for a couple more minutes.

It’s chilly up on the tower, so I wrap my blue scarf around
my head and carefully position my teal knit headband on top,
more concerned with staying warm enough to enjoy my time
on the balcony of the tower than with how silly I must look.
Once I get my bearings, I begin ambling around the
observation deck counterclockwise, camera in tow, stopping
to admire and photograph every single major building and
sight I see. There’s a Ferris wheel, a river with a boat and a
bridge I like, the Sacré-Coeur, the Arc de Triomphe. There’s
the skyscrapers, extolled by our tour guide Audrey when we
first arrived in France—skyscrapers are much less common in
Europe than they are in the U.S., she had told us. So while
skyscrapers are not special to me, they are special to Paris, so
I’m able to appreciate them for a moment, with Audrey in
mind. There’s more bridges spanning the river and an
illuminated soccer field, where kids had been playing when
we passed it earlier that evening. A dark, somewhat cloudy
sky envelops the city, illuminated not by stars but by a
multitude of city lights in all directions, and I find myself
surrounded by 360 degrees of my time in Paris.

⁂

By nine p.m., we have left the Eiffel Tower and are
walking back toward the metro. After every last member of
our group had been tracked down and accounted for, we
descended the tower not by elevator but by foot in the most

| 30