Remember way back when I said that I was finally living one of my biggest dreams and escaping to Paris for a week? Well...

It happened!

And it was as surreal as it could possibly be.
Frank and I made so many touristy mistakes (eating near sites, visiting souvenir shops, speaking English) but I finally understand it all. Due to the combination of being in desperate need of a vacation combined with jet lag grouchiness, my tourist flag was especially free during this trip. One of our first stops? Obviously the Tour de Eiffel!

This is me drinking a 5 euro cafe creme outside of the Eiffel Tower with zero shame. ZERO.

Inner NYC Corinne says rookie mistake. However, Parisian Tourist Corinne needed coffee if she was going to stand on the line for an hour to get to the top of the Eiffel Tower in the perfect Salvatore Ferragamo flats and pay God knows how much because Paris Pass didn't work here. Who cares, set my wallet on fire, I'm at the damn Eiffel Tower.
Yeah, Parisian Tourist Corinne won that round.

And this is us, an hour or so later, at the top of the Eiffel Tower. Seriously, did this happen?

I don't remember how much we paid to get up there and I've purposely expunged the memory of the annoying small children behind us on the line to get there, but what I do remember is the gust of wind that ran through the utmost part of the tower, watching the sunset through the bars of the structure and the champagne bar packed to the gills as if it was New Year's Eve.
By the time we finally left it was nighttime and an even more perfect sight at the bottom.

Seriously, this is what it looks like there.

Every touristy second of our day? Totally worth it.