It's a small weird, weird world - The Parisian Edition

[CAN CAN GIRLS]

When you think you can't
You'll find you can can!
[SOPHIE]
Everyone can can can!
[SOPHIE AND CAN CAN GIRLS]
You can can can too!

--Anastasia Soundtrack, "Paris Holds The Key To Her Heart"

The lyrics really have absolutely nothing to do with my trip, but Anastasia has been my favorite princess ever since I learned of her existance when I was in grade school, and this song is so fun to sing.

What else is fun and a little bit obnoxious?

Selfies!

My first day was of course the day of the walking tour.  One of the things I was embarassingly really looking forward to for was the Love Lock Bridge.  It's the bridge between the Louvre and the Academie Francaise (who apparently spend six months debating what the gender would be for the word "ipod").  

The tradition is for a couple to buy a lock together, write their names on it, lock it to the bridge and then toss the key into the river.  This symbolizes that no one can ever take away or break their love.

The problem with this is that every six months the city has to remove all the chain link on the bridge and replace it or the the locks would become too heavy and make the old wooden bridge sink into the river.

Another hilarious wrench thrown into this romantic theory is the people who use combination locks. 

"I love you, but I'm not sure I want to love you forever."

As you can see, there a crap ton of locks on this bridge.  Some of the people get pretty creative about what they put on their lock, and that's what makes looking at them fun and interesting.  One of my favorites was the dinosaur in the picture in the upper left corner.

Crazily enough, I just happened to be in Paris on the day the Tour de France ended.  I was coming back from the Eiffel Tower and stopped on the bridge you see in the picture in the upper left corner to ask someone what time the bikes were supposed to come through. I'd gotten different times quoted to me all day and I figured the people camping out along the route would be most likely to know.  I personally I wanted to know if I should hang out or just head back to the flat for the night.

I spotted a group of middle-aged women, who, it turns out, were also from Cincinnati and actually knew the last nurse I had oriented at the hospital before quitting.  They invited me to watch the bikes arrive with them and supplied me with wine and snacks.  It was a lot more fun than I expected it to be, and we had a great non-crowded view on the bridge when they first arrived.  Our view was less than ideal as we moved in toward the Arc de Triomphe, but everyone was so pumped up it was still a great time.