From Russia With Love - 5. Chapter 5

Kodi and I were in the lounge having breakfast when our parents sat down next to us.

“What time were you boys up? I just knocked for you,” my dad said.

“We’ve been in here for about an hour. I woke up just before five and couldn’t get back to sleep, and then Kodi woke up shortly afterwards.”

“So you’ve already had breakfast then?”

“Well I don’t know about Kyle, but I’m ready for fourths.”

“Fourths!”

“Yes Dad,” I said with a laugh. “We’ve had our cereal, we’ve have our porridge and we’ve had our toast and cooked breakfast. I think I can force down some fruit and yoghurt, with perhaps a sprinkling of muesli.”

My dad went to get himself his morning cup of coffee and I heard him mutter something about ‘hollow legs’.

We left the hotel a few minutes before eight o’clock, and walked up to the Courcelles metro station.

“Why can’t we simply walk to the Eiffel Tower? We can see it from our hotel room.”

“Jess, it’s not actually that close to the hotel. Although you can see it from the hotel, it would take about an hour to walk there,” Kodi informed her.

“And let me guess, there are no direct metro trains?” I think Jess meant it as a sincere question, but it came out dripping with sarcasm, which earned her a glare from Janet.

“I’ve had a look at the metro map, and sorry Jess, but there are no direct metro trains.”

As had been our previous experiences, we didn’t have to wait too long for the line two metro train. We would have to change at Charles de Gaulle Étoile just as we did when we went to the Louvre, which thrilled Jess to no end. We arrived at the Étoile station five minutes later and changed to the line six metro platform. The onward journey to the Bir-Hakeim station only took us seven or eight minutes, and we arrived about half an hour before the Eiffel Tower was due to open.

We took a slow walk along the Quai Branly and when we arrived at the Eiffel Tower, I got the shock of my life; there were already huge queues forming at the ticket offices. I’d never seen queues this long before, not even at major sporting events we’d been to, and if I had to guess we’d likely be queuing up for at least an hour just to buy our tickets, to say nothing of how long we’d have to wait to even get up the tower.

“Dad, look at those queues! It’s going to take us an hour or more before we even get our tickets,” Kodi said, eerily voicing my concern.

“Don’t worry,” my dad said. “I had the forethought to buy our tickets on-line. See, I’ve got them right here.” He produced a couple of A4 sheets of paper, which did indeed show our pre-paid tickets.

“You really do think of everything don’t you Dad?”

“You have to remember that I’m far more travelled than you boys are. Many of the things I plan ahead for these days, I only do so because of past experiences. Like today, with me buying the tickets in advance. Your mother and I came to Paris for the first time about twenty years ago, and we ended up queuing right here for nearly two and a half hours.”

We walked over to the small queue by the lift, which only comprised those few clever people who, like Dad, had pre-purchased their tickets from the Eiffel Tower’s website.

Our parents decided that it would be a good idea if we went up to the top floor straight away and worked our way down. “It’s just that since Clare and I have been before, we know that you can end up waiting an hour or more for the lifts going up at each stage, especially as the morning progresses. However, if we work our way down from the top, I think we should be able to avoid the worst of the queues.”

So we jumped from one lift to the next lift; ‘mathematically jumped’ as Phileas Fogg no doubt would have said. Jess was getting really restless by the time we got into the third and final lift to take us from the second floor up to the top of the tower; she was bouncing from one foot on to the other and constantly asking ‘How much longer, Mummy?’. To be honest though, I was probably getting as antsy as she was, but I was just better at keeping myself under control.

As soon as the lift door opened, Jess bolted out of the lift, running straight through Kodi and me in the process.

“Jessica Clarice Waughrin! Come back here now!”

Jess reluctantly rejoined us and said, “Sorry Mum.”

“I want you to stay close to us while we’re here. The Eiffel Tower can get very busy and I don’t want to lose anyone.” What Janet actually meant was that she didn’t want to lose Jess. The unthinkable had happened the previous year at the British Museum when Jess disappeared for nearly three hours. Thankfully, nothing bad happened, and we got Jess back in one piece, but Janet was completely distraught at the prospect of what might have happened and she’s never forgiven herself for taking her eyes of Jess. I’m not even related to Jess, and I know I’d never have been able to cope if something had of happened to her; I couldn’t even begin to imagine what Janet was going through over it; I know that they were the longest three hours of my life.

First off, we all headed to the waxwork exhibition of Gustave Eiffel’s office. The exhibition is set up in the fully restored office of Gustave Eiffel. It has been restored to its original condition, and the scene depicts Gustave and his daughter, Claire, with Thomas Edison. We all took some pictures, before Jess dragged us off to look out of the huge panoramic window. We looked on the maps, which showed us how far we were from various world cities, and we were all surprised at just how far across Paris we could actually see.

We had been blessed with a perfectly clear blue sky this morning and we could easily see the Notre Dame Cathedral, the Sacré Coeur Basilica, the Louvre’s glass pyramid, and we could even just make out The Chateau of Versailles. I began to wonder what kind of poor view visitors get during the winter months and I started feeling sorry for them.

We’d spent just over an hour and a half on the top floor of the Tower and my tummy began rumbling. I know I’d had a very big breakfast, but it was now just gone eleven and I’m a growing boy.

I guess the rest must have started feeling it as well, because we were soon in the lift heading down to the second floor of the Tower. Although it was still too early for lunch proper, we grabbed a snack and a drink. Kodi, Jess and I had a slice of pizza and our parents had a baguette. After we finished, we began our exploration of this stage of the Eiffel Tower.

Although we couldn’t see quite as far from here as we could from the top of the tower, we could still make out the Arc de Triomphe and we enjoyed looking at some of the boats cruising along the Seine. Kodi and I offered to take care of Jess so that our parents could wander around on their own without having to worry about her.

“Are you boys sure?” asked Janet.

“Of course Mum. We wouldn’t have offered otherwise.”

“It’s really no trouble Janet, I enjoy spending time with Jess,” I added.

“Well so long as you’re both sure.”

So Kodi, Jess, and I went off one way and our parents went the other way, and we agreed to meet up in the gift shop in an hour and half.

Kodi and I kept a tight hold of Jess as we looked through the displays showing the story of the building of the Eiffel Tower and we also looked through the vision well, which gives you a look at the ground below (which is nearly 380 feet away) without needing to hang yourself over the safety railing.

We had a look through the window of the Jules Verne restaurant and the three of us thought it looked a really lovely place to eat, but then we saw the prices; I nearly dropped dead from shock on the spot. For the seven of us to eat there, it would cost upwards of €700! Oh well, nice thought. Since it was nearly time for us to meet up with our parents we headed to the gift shop, since we wanted to pick up a couple of souvenirs.

“Thanks for letting me come with you guys instead of hanging around with Mum and Dad,” Jess said, hugging Kodi first and then me.

“You are more than welcome Jess,” I said, as she hugged me. I’d always been close to Jess, but I think since I got together with Kodi, we’ve actually gotten closer.

Jess ran off to look for something to buy, and Kodi and I started browsing as well while still keeping a very close eye on Jess.

We all bought our souvenirs and met up with our parents. The three of us had just bought some little nick-nackie things; key chains, bookmarks, that kind of thing.

We went down to the first level, and by now the Eiffel Tower was really starting to get busy. We stopped in the Cineiffel exhibition, and had a walk around, but it was getting difficult to move anywhere owing to the crowds, so we decided to leave and get ourselves some lunch.