A downdate?

So, my friend Alisha said I should update my blog. This post is not going to be something new though, rather something old that I found and wanted to post, so would that be called a "downdate"? I think I would rather call it a "postdate", but if an "update" is new... That's not the point.

So I found this video on our computer, and I don't think I even knew we had it, and while it makes me look completely ridiculous, I have to put it on here because it captures one of my favorite moments. And besides, you all know I am an absolute dork, so I really lose nothing.

So when we lived in the Netherlands last fall my parents came to visit and we went on all sorts of trips, we drove to Belgium, Germany, and France. While we were on our way to France, my mom and I were talking about Paris, because that was our first destination, and we were speculating as to what it would be like to actually be in Paris! You know, like PARIS!!! It's given so much hype and romanticism, that we were a little skeptical it could actually live up to it's reputation. My mom said that you expect a city like Paris after all you've heard your whole life to "sparkle" and how can a city actually sparkle? She used the word sparkle, and that's important. We talked about how we might end up being disappointed, because real life is never as dreamy as storybook life, but we also decided that we really hoped it would sparkle, because we needed a little magic in our lives after the stress (especially for my mom) of driving in Europe. I mean, you make those little BMW's angry and you know... watch out.

So we live through the experience of driving to Paris (terrifying. Not my mom's fault, but just that we were ALWAYS lost, and didn't always understand the distinction between roads for cars, and roads for pedestrians only... oops. Though, that might have been Germany, you get the state of our general confusion.) And we finally figure out how to legally park the car (this was quite a victory for my mom and I, although that's another story of survival in a foreign country.) We also figured out how to get tickets to and get onto the subway and we take a ride to the Eiffel tower, the epitome of all that Paris stands for in the romantic touristy sense. We get off the subway and we're walking through this foresty kind of grove of trees, and I thought that was nice, I could have stayed there longer, but we pushed on until we saw the tower. There it was, in the midst of this field of grass. And there are people milling about, taking pictures, pointing, exclaiming, and I'm looking around for the people rushing into each other's arms, having moments earlier realized that they are madly in love and had almost missed out on it all, blah blah blah, but nothing of that sort is really happening. So, we begin to mill about, and take pictures, and it is all a bit anti-climactic. Oh, ok, so there's the tower. What exactly is so great about it?

Someone suggests we leave, and so, we turn our backs on the tower and start to walk away. Suddenly, my mom says, "I don't want to go quite yet, so can we at least walk that way back to the subway, so we are looking at the tower a little longer?" So we turn around to go a more roundabout way to the subway, but a way that will allow my mom to gaze for a few more moments on the tower. As we turn around, quite suddenly, the lights on the tower start flashing, and quite literally, the whole thing is sparkling.

How can I describe the feeling to you? It was discovering that there are unicorns hiding in the remote forests of the world. It was finding out that there is a jolly old man living in the North Pole with elves. It was learning that leprochauns do grant wishes if you find their pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Do you see what I'm saying? Just when we had given up on it, Paris sparkled just.for.us! So, this is the video where I tried to capture the Eiffel tower sparkling right when we needed it most, and that's what I want you to focus on. In fact, do me a favor, and turn the volume down. Just do it. You don't want to hear what we're saying. It'll ruin the moment. Also, again, it's sideways. I know, I know.

Watching this video still brings goosebumps and tears to my eyes, and I hope that each one of you gets to have a magical moment like this someday! (or every day!)