Happiness

Vaguely remember a TED talk where the author talks about Happiness being in Love in a Paris Cafe while drinking coffee or some such thing..

The three women in the house have been in love with the concept of being in Paris for a long time. That said they were all way too excited and I was worried that there is no way they can end the day happy, and I was almost right!

The previous post in this series is here...

We went from the Louvre for a short walk to the Cruise boat stop. It was a large boat.. must have had a few hundred people on it. The ride was a loop and we had an all day pass as part of the package. The group went on the boat and got off at the Eiffel tower.

There was a long line at the security checkpoint that cost us dearly in time. There was no bypassing that. After we got through, the guide quickly took us to the first level of the tower, we learned a few things about the place (like how the names of famous French scientists was written along the rim of the tower) and our pre ordered vegetarian option for lunch was served in the restaurant at the first level of the tower.

We had great views (no good photographs unfortunately as the windows were bright and the insides were dark) and the lunch was excellent. 

That is the happiest I have seen this kid in recent times and this is a happy go lucky kid we are talking about!

We were then told that our tickets were not for the elevator to the 2nd level landing, but it was 500 steps? one way and if we could run up and down and make it back in 30 minutes we won't miss the group on its way out. 

San decided to sit this one out and the girls and me ran up the steps as fast as we could. After a heavy lunch it seemed to be an ordeal but we did it and were not disappointed. The views were much better from the 2nd landing and we took some photos...

got a lot of Pano shots of Paris from the 2nd level..

then we ran back down in time to take the elevator to the ground. 

The girls actually had enough energy to run all the way to the ground floor from the first level. We still had to wait another 20 minutes for the group to gather after we reached the ground.  There is always the one family within the group that has to be 10 minutes late.. was telling myself "next time I want to be that family!" and realized it was not in our nature to be that family. 

We spent the 20 minutes wandering through the gift shop on one of the legs of the tower, bought a nice miniature replica of the Eiffel tower for 25 Euro, walked out of the tower and saw a bunch of African immigrants selling the same thing without the box for 8 Euro, smiled at how the kids were saying "but the one we got is in a box and is better quality Appa!"  and went back to the boat stop. Today was not the day to have any conversation about objects, value, economics, etc. etc. Today was their day.. 

Slide shows of the pictures from our Eiffel Tower Visit..

It was time to see the famous Notre Dame cathedral!

So far it was so good. The girls were on cloud 9 after this experience and I wished to freeze those moments for a long time..