My son had been longing to see the Eiffel tower for months. My daughter's friend had never been to Europe or even travelled on an airplane before. So, we decided to take the opportunity for a stopover in Paris, in order to quench my son's craving and make Maddie's trip more memorable. Our flight would leave Atlanta ~8pm, arriving in Paris ~ 11am (Paris time). We would then have to catch a flight from Paris to Nuremburg at 8pm. We only had about seven hours, so we made it a quickie tour of Paris. . .
After landing in Charles de Gaulle airport with very little sleep, we took the train into Paris, stopping off at Notre Dame. We walked a bit until finding the Louvre. We then decided to stop in a cafe for some limonades and orangina before continuing our trek. We wisely chose to hail a cab to reach our main destination, since the kids had begun to lag behind. My husband asked the driver to take us down the Champs, by the Arc de Triomphe to Trocadero. Picture five of us sitting in the taxi with the windows down and arms jockeying for a position to take pictures as we
yelled out, "look, Armani . . . Prada . . . Louis Vuitton, Fouquet's! That's the Arc de Triomphe!" as we drove along the wide tree-lined famous street.The climax of our 7 hour tour was just around the corner when the driver jokingly told everyone to look to the left. The Eiffel Tower was actually on our right, and there was an audible gasp when the kids caught on and finally saw it.
We walked through the Trocadero with renewed energy, wading through the crowds, stopping only to gawk at the live statues and street performers. We saw hip hoppers dancing, Tai chiers 
tai chiing, rollerbladers skating, skate boarders boarding around Trocadero. Many others chose to get relief from the heat by splashing around in the fountain.
We finally made our way to the Tower and walked under it. Unfortunately the line just to buy tickets in order to go up was snaking forever. We knew we couldn't take a chance on our timing, so going up wasn't an option.
After leaving the Tower, we walked away from the crowds expecting to easily hail another taxi. Not so fast. We walked a while, waited a while and continued to a taxi stand. We stood next to another couple from the states who had been waiting a while. After several taxis passed the taxi stand, we decided to move on. A few blocks over we finally found a taxi that would stop and take us to our next destination, Mont Martre.
When we arrived at Mont Martre, several of us had to relieve ourselves from the limonade we drank earlier. We found a WC, conveniently located right where we were dropped off. I think this was a shocking experience for Maddie, as the 'men's ' room was located next to the women's, only separated by a partial, chest-high partition. A disturbing sight for me, but especially for a 14-year-old girl who has never out of the sterile confines of the United States.
The view, of course, was breathtaking, and there was a group singing right on the steps of Sacre
Coeur, adding a poignant soundtrack to our final moments in Paris. The kids were really dragging at this point, so we started heading back to a train station. Luckily, we happened upon a crepe stand and used sugar as a boost to make it the last few blocks to the train. At this point, I considered that I might have to carry Sydney. She and Maddie had not slept at all on the flight, so she was reaching a state of beyond tired.Once at the station, we had trouble with the ticket machine and ended up standing in the station for a while, waiting in line to buy tickets. When we finally sat down in the old vinyl seats on the dirty train. Our bodies were thanking us for the relief. Sydney was quickly lulled to sleep by the chugging of the train. We made it back to the airport but had to run through security and to our gate. We did cut it a little close, but the quickie tour was a success, and the kids will never forget the first time they saw Paris.
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