The Eiffel Slower

We did it.
Paris, day 2. 
We went to the Eiffel Tower. The kids loved Montmartre last night with cousine Celine. But they thought that the Eiffel tower looked a bit small from there. 

Well, it was a different tune today when they emerged from the metro at Trocadero and saw it in all its riveted metal beauty. Mimi was thrilled, I could tell. 

So we joined the queue at the East pillar, the only one where you can purchase a ticket to the third floor. 
And the queue snaked its evil way for a rather worrying distance, and moved at an even more worrying pace. 
I had to take myself and Mimi to the loo at some stage. When I came back, Mrs Raheny looked apoplectic. Strange I thought, she is after all used to my abnormally small bladder capacity. 
The root of the problem was more to do with the German teacher who jumped the queue just ahead of us. And then proceeded to smuggle his 25 students one by one ahead of us, calling them from a distance. 
Mrs Raheny protested, both in English and in French. He feigned not to understand her, but after a while he declared that he "did not wish to speak with [her]". 
That's when I came back. 
I promptly took the whole family and barged through them, to where our spot in the queue should have been. 
I think he understood my more colourful English and French and my "Du bist kein richtig" and the look in my eye that promised a headbutt if he failed to get the message. 
Finn was by then in tears. He is a lot less comfortable with confrontation than I am. He'll have to learn I guess. 

But when we got to the top, after a wait of two and a half hours, and I saw the excitement in the kids' eyes, and when I realised how excited I was myself, it all became worthwhile. It really did. 

And I almost gave Hans and his 25 students a hug in the lift on the way back to the second floor.