LH Franz 
In front of the book store, we joined a line of people waiting to enter. It was a cozy collection of passageways and uneven bookshelves, with hand-written notes everywhere and a cat sleeping in a windowbox. The charming effect was (only slightly) mitigated by the fact that we were side-shuffling with a hundred other people.
That night, we visited the Eiffel Tower. We oldsters had no interest in climbing it, and Daughter had already tried that once. Nor did any of us have any interest in waiting on a very long line to take an elevator to the top, so we stayed on the ground. The trip there on the #69 bus was as touristy as anything else. We watched the Parisian scenery roll by out the window – designer shops, picturesque squares and statues, historic plaques on every block asserting “So-and-so was born here, died here, wrote his novel here, worked here…”
Walking to the Eiffel Tower from the bus stop we met the same groups of hawkers we had seen outside the Louvre, selling miniature glow-in-the-dark monuments and other knick-knacks. There were also hawkers selling roses. Daughter had warned me about them. They offer you a flower as if they’re being nice, then, if you let them put it into your hands, they demand you pay them for it. When Betsy was in Paris in college, bracelets were also scammed in this way. The hawkers would approach in a friendly manner, wrap bracelets around your wrist before you could stop them, then demand money for you to buy them. Thus forewarned, we were primed to tell anyone approaching us for any reason to get lost, but I don’t recall needing to say it. Perhaps we looked too defiant for them to try.
After some viewing and photographs, we were discussing whether we should wait to see the tower light up or go back to the hotel, when it suddenly all the lights lit up, vibrant gold against the remains of the sunset. “Ooooooooh,” went the crowd.
It was a beautiful end to a long day.
