Eiffel Tower, Paris: My Favorite Place

Photograph taken by French photographer,
known by the username NonOmnisMoriar. Source: Wikimedia

My favorite place may be a bit cliché, but it is mine nonetheless. My entire life, I dreamed of going to Paris and exploring France. I wanted to speak French before I even knew what languages were. I wanted to "talk like Belle" and go to the cathedral from which Quasimodo gazed down at the people of Paris. I wanted to explore like the little red-haired orphan Madeline and find out how a city could capture millions of imaginations including my own.

The spring of my sophomore year, I studied abroad in Clermont-Ferrand, France. My first trip to France would be for five months. So I had to hope the country would be everything it was cracked up to be because I was stuck there for a while whether I liked it or not. 

I am not ashamed to admit that I cried when I first saw the Eiffel Tower. It was a mixture of happiness, relief, and travel fatigue. Pure bliss that I was actually in Paris, gazing up at a structure I had only dreamed of for twenty years. Relief that it was even better than I had imagined and could comprehend before that moment. Travel fatigue... I had been awake for over 24 hours. 

I could share so many stories about magical moments I have had at the Eiffel Tower, but suffice it to say that it is the most wonderful place I have ever been and will ever go to again. 

Personal photo taken by Laura Joly
 January 16, 2016