The 200-Meter Dash

On my last night in La Ville Lumière—the City of Lights—the one thing I had to see before departing the wondrous city was the Eiffel Tower. On the Seine River cruise boat, I watched in awe as the sun slowly sank behind the ivy-clad brick buildings that peppered the horizon, painting the sky above me gorgeous shades of pastel pinks and creamy oranges. Birds ceased to discuss the day's happenings, hurrying from sidewalks and cafés to their trees to turn in for the night. City lights began to twinkle as the Parisian nightlife awakened from its slumber.

My friend Marilyn shook me out of my dazed state and pointed towards the spectacle to the left of the boat. "Look, Seth! It's the Tower!" I caught a glimpse of the first of the 20,000 lights that illuminated La Dame de Fer blink to life. More than a thousand meters of iron lit up in an extravagant display. The boat veered towards the river bank as my study tour group departed and rushed towards the Tower.

The walkway leading up to the entrance was thrown into chaos; fellow tourists clamored to situate themselves for a better view of the nightly spectacle; photographers grappled for their cameras to capture the moment that time tried to steal. Illegal street vendors took a break from their felonious endeavors and joined the crowds.

New security measures had recently been implemented to keep petitioning girls, pickpockets, and fake vendors from scouting out unknowing tourists right below the Tower and its entrances. But that didn't stop these men from forcefully selling selfie sticks, wine, and cheap trinkets to oblivious vacationers.

Littered throughout the city—in the Tuileries Garden, on the plaza leading to the Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel—illegal street vendors would sell cheap, plastic Eiffel Tower souvenirs for one euro a piece. Sellers around the Trocadéro and the Tower mostly immigrated from Sub-Saharan Africa, and those settled near the Champs-Élysées are the sector of the Romanian community either from France or Romania, all just hoping to make a living from their ventures.

I recalled a moment earlier that day. Stepping out of a café across the street from Notre-Dame, Marilyn and I were immediately approached by two of these vendors. "Non merci" quickly became a more forceful "Non!" as the pushy street vendors insisted on selling us miniature Eiffel Towers and other souvenirs. One got right up in our faces and started yelling at us to "f*** off," apparently the only curse word in English he knew. The other simply huffed away, taking with him the clink-clank of the cheap Towers that hung from his key ring.

Now, as the lights of the Tower began to twinkle away and the crowds dissipated, the vendors were quick to return to their nightly duties. Red and blue suddenly washed over the large courtyard beneath the tower, illuminating their pale, worried faces, like deer caught in headlights. Marlyn and I watched with pure fascination as police sprinted in hot pursuit after the vendors, who fled like criminals running from a drug deal. They hid behind bushes, clutching their rings of Eiffel Towers to their chests as to quiet the clink-clanks of the trinkets.

"Never in my life have I seen anyone run the 200-meter that fast." Marilyn laughed, clutching her stomach. "You've got a lot of work to do, Seth." Considering my then lackluster performance in cross-country, I couldn't help but agree.