Under the Eiffel Tower

I don’t have very many pictures here of my year abroad as an Exchange Student. There are three pictures from that year that I really love, though, and think about them from time to time.
One of them is of Lawna Hurl and me laughing our heads off on a top bunk during the weekend in the Ardennes that Rotary organized for us- we had switched sweaters, both of which were itchy Icelandic wool (not surprising—she’s Canadian, and I am from the Great White North). Then there’s the picture of Laura and me on the train. She is showing off her Dutch shoes that she has just used to clomp up and down the aisle of the train on the way back from Amsterdam. Luckily, Laura had that one still and scanned it. I posted it to this blog to illustrate how crazy she is, that it’s not a new thing.
Then there is my all-time favorite. It is in Paris (another Rotary trip). It is Leon Rothenberg, Tate Shadbourne, and me under the Eiffel tower. Whoever took the picture had to lie on the ground and look up to take it (Laura, were you the photographer?).
I recently found this picture by accident. It was hiding in a bag of good-bye cards from my friends from Falmouth, on Cape Cod, where I lived before I moved here, cards that I cannot bear to read-- or throw out.
I was rummaging through the bag looking for something else when I found it, the three of us staring up at me in a triangle. That’s my Paris. I can’t wait to re-create that photo in April. Leon, are you in? and Tate, where is that guy anyway?