My mom and I had promised the kids we would go see the Eiffel Tower today. My friend Melissa recommended taking the kids to see pop culture icons because they will always remember them and be able to say later “I saw that!”.

This WWI and WWII memorial had flowers at it from 8 mai. It is on our way to the Metro.

We happen to be here the week of the 130th anniversary of the Eiffel Tower. This didn’t really change anything for us since we visited during the day. I think there is a light show at night.

Beautiful harp music in the Metro.

Our Airbnb is about an hour from the Eiffel Tower. Our ride there was nice and quiet. On the way, Asa and Esme started to get cold feet. Neither wanted to go up to the top anymore! By the time we arrived, they again wanted to go to to the top. Asa really wanted to do the stairs so we split up. My mom took the girls on the elevator and the boys and I took the stairs.

Asa flew up those stairs. Cal and I struggled to keep up but we made it to the second floor before my mom arrived with the girls. The line was longer for the elevator.

Then we all rode the elevator to the 3rd floor together. They don’t allow the public to climb to the top anymore which is a good thing because I don’t know if I would have made it! Asa got a little nervous at the top but we were all glad we went to the summit.

I have no idea what’s going on here but I think they are getting tired of my picture-taking!

When we got back to the ground, we set out across the Seine to the Jardins de Trocadéro.

The kids spotted a playground so we stopped to play for a while and video chatted with Nole from the park. It was kind of funny when he said, “Hey, is that the Eiffel Tower in the background?”

Then we decided to walk to find lunch.

Can you spot Esme?

Asa found a restaurant called Mandarine and he ordered yakitori and rice. Cal ordered some sauteed pork dumplings or “ravioli” as they called them. I walked down one of the side streets and found an Italian deli where I ordered a mozzarella salad. There was a great fruit market there too and we bought cherries and blueberries. We found a cute little park with a playground and ate our fruit and played. School let out and the playground flooded with kids. Nova made a few friends, some girls who were about 7 years old who thought it was cute that she spoke English. She was having so much fun she didn’t want to leave the park. We got a treat from a vendor near Champs du Mars on our way back to the Metro.Cal spotted a Japanese cultural center and the admission price wasn’t too high so we went to see the art exhibit they had.Then we caught the Metro back to the Airbnb only now it was 6:30 pm which is prime rush hour. Our Metro car was packed like a cattle car. It was not fun and we had about 15 stops to go. At one point there were about 10 of us holding one grab pole. That’s when Cal whispered to me, “I accidentally licked that guy’s hand”. We almost died laughing. He had his mouth open when the Metro jerked and he ran into the hand of one of the guys holding the same pole as us. We got home after 7 which means we finally ate a dinner at the typical French time! We have been eating between 5 and 6 pm like at home. We picked up another rotisserie chicken because it’s easier with our kitchen being so small. Oh and the kids found an OJ look-alike in our courtyard. OJ is one of our kitties back home.