I have learned something on this trip to Paris.  It doesn’t matter if you’re the world’s best tour guide who is also able to speak fluent french.

Paris in the summer is evil.

Allow me to torture you with photos of me and seven million of my fellow tourist friends who are brilliant enough to visit this city’s most popular attractions in the summertime. To ease your pain, I will try and stick in some photos that I find mildly interesting or entertaining.

 Oh you know you are going to be mildly disappointed when you see her, but you ride the wave of clueless gawkers and go see La Joconde anyways.

Scorning that crowd that follows you to the next big ticket exhibit, you don’t even try to approach the main viewing area. You and Venus de Milo’s butt will do just fine for a Kodak moment.

Rodin Garden. There was no way this guy was producing any quality thinking while pudgy little children were climbing up the side to produce a classy desktop photo for mom and dad.

I wanted to visit the Orsay to see the actual building, more than the stash of impressionist paintings.

Sitting in the museum cafe before wandering around. Those people in fanny packs are starting to stream in…..and I’m suppressing my urge for flight….

Go hide up in the bell tower of Notre Dame? I’ll take this noise over the old dude who droned on about his Paris transportation misadventures while we waited to be let in. No really, I don’t want you to unfold your big map and relive with you how your metro broke down and forced you to figure out how to get to Sacre Coeur…..I waited in that damn line for an hour.

When it came to visiting the Eiffel Tower- we thought we’d be smarter. We bought our tickets to see the sunset weeks in advance, long before the trip even commenced.

Like we thought that kind of advance planning would save us! We were still penned in a line on the second level for over an hour, largely laughing at this dude’s t-shirt. It read:

Electric Club
FUNK
For cool dudes
Very Important People Only

My brother-in-law and I were delirious from waiting in line. Everything became funny. We were hot and tired…and we almost completely abandoned our quest to reach the top.

 We found this translation hilarious. You might not- but I still do. It’s a sure sign that our two hours of captivity up on the Tower were extremely traumatic.

So sunset came and went while we were wrapped around the second level. By the time we got in the second elevator we had gotten over the Eiffel Tower. The one saving grace at the top was me posing next to a Senegalese flag. And that didn’t even make the experience worthwhile.

This queuing business extends to food as well. You want to try falafel that’s rated the world’s best?  Well guess what:

Get in line!

Wicked good ice cream. Same thing. Line.

Okay, I have thrown enough random pictures at you for one entry. Yeah, I’m complaining a bit- but only because I’m a little disappointed that this is the first impression of Paris that my family has witnessed. You all can post comments that say, “Shut the Hell up! You’re in PARIS after all!” and I will of course concede your point. But fair warning to all of you who are planning to come to Paris (instead of coming to see me in Dakar):

1) Stay the Hell away from La Vie en Rose during the summer months
and

2) I am a very expensive tour guide- you probably can’t afford me

We’re fleeing the city tomorrow. Bound for Aix-en-Provence.