A Picture of Me At the Eiffel Tower in Paris

Here is picture of me at the Eiffel Tower literally days after I shaved my head for the first time. This would have been in August of 1998. 

My brother was living in Paris at the time. Maybe you, the reader, may recall that this was the summer when France hosted the World Cup/Coupe du Monde (and wound up winning it). Somehow, my brother had managed to obtain tickets to the semifinal game (he also got tickets to a quarterfinal game in 1994 between Germany and Bulgaria, which we both went to, as well), and he offered to take me, if I wanted the ticket. So, I went ahead, and built a whole trip to France out of it. It had been since the summer of 1998 since I had last been to France, so I was of course happy to go. 

It was a great trip, lasting for six weeks. Figured that it might be the last time that I would get to take such a long trip, being an adult now, so I really went for a long time. Glad that I did, though. That first week was one of the most amazing and memorable weeks of my adult life. First of all, there was the great feeling of being back in a somewhat unfamiliar place and growing reacquainted with it. This is particularly pleasant when that place is Paris. That was on July 7th, and the next day, we went to that semifinal game between France and Croatia. It wound up being perhaps the most exciting football/soccer game that I have ever seen, and the atmosphere was intense, electric. France won in electrifying fashion, coming from behind, then hanging on even though they were down one man. My brother and I walked back to his apartment from the Stade de France afterward, and enjoyed the people celebrating on the streets. Two days later, we saw the Three Tenors at the Champ de Mars, under the Eiffel Tower. Two days after that, France won their first ever World Cup championship, shutting out favored Brazil, the sport's traditional powerhouse nation, 3-0. We went out to the streets celebrating after that game, and it was one of the most amazing and memorable experiences of my adult life. The streets were mobbed with people, but everyone was just celebrating, having a good time, and in a good mood. There was nothing to give anyone any bad blood. Two days after that, it was the 14th of July, la fête nationale, or France's national holiday. Better known among English speakers as Bastille Day, it is the equivalent of the Fourth of July in the United States, or Canada Day in Canada. We went up to the hill in Monmartre and watched the firework down by the Eiffel Tower. Some amazing experiences, and they rank among my favorite memories. I cannot remember any other single week that was quite like that. The only thing that came remotely close was when my wife, our son, and I went up to Québec City in 2008 on a weekend in July to see Paul McCartney give a free concert on the Plains of Abraham. 

Sometimes, I still like to reflect on that trip to France. And running into this picture helped me do just that.

Ah, yes, I vividly recall the first time that I shaved my head. My brother had more or less half dared, half urged me to do it, and since it was summer vacation for another month, and I was starting at a new school (Rutgers University) where pretty much no one knew me, it seemed like a good time to do it. But since I had never shaved my head completely before, I did not know what I was doing. There were some spots that I had to go over again and again, and believe me, you start to feel it. Parts of my head were seriously sore, almost feeling like a carpet burn. Still, after going over it again and again, there were some chunks of hair growth still attached to my head, and I had to ask my brother for help. 

After that was done, we went walking outside. It was maybe around 10:30 at night, and if memory serves correctly, we took a subway to another part of town (cannot recall where we were walking around, specifically), and I remember how surprisingly cool the air felt on my head, which no longer had any hair to protect it. 

However, it wound up being bad timing on my part, because we entered a massive heat wave maybe a day or two later, and I was not used to wearing hats, so I forgot. Got a bad sunburn under the intense and unrelenting sunshine, and my head started to peel just in time for the flight back to the States. My peeling head made me look sickly, with these whitish blisters of dead, peeling skin mapped out across the top of my head. There were some raised eyebrows and horrified looks when I got onto the plane, let me tell you.

Still, this was just before my sunburn. In fact, it very well might have been on the very day that this picture was taken that I "earned" the sunburn that would follow me back across the ocean. 

Here are two different versions of the picture. They both came out a bit darker than the actual picture, for some reason. But the one on top came out a little lighter. The one on the bottom, on the other hand, has a greater measure of clarity.