The French like love locks

While I was snapping away with my camera on a boat tour of the Seine river, one of things that caught my lens eye was a bridge sprinkled with locks.When I first saw it, I thought it was pretty charming but had no idea why someone would want to litter the Seine bridges with ugly metal trinkets such as locks. There had to be a purpose behind this habit. After the boat tour, we noticed nearly every bridge had these locks. Finally getting up close with it, I noticed there were people's initials on the locks-which I assume belonged to the owners. The French version of the American carving initials into a tree if you will. The initials were significant because they were of your own and your sweetie. The tradition goes that you carve your initials into the lock, attach it to the fence of the Seine, and toss the key into the river to lock away your eternal love. However, this romantic gesture did not originate in France. The Italians believe to have been the first (much like we claim to be the creator of pizza...still a mystery to me). Most people saw the trend occur in 2010 and it caught on quickly. Hopefully though, the locks will be maintained within the boundaries of the Seine bridges. However, a part of me thinks that this is a great way to leave your mark on the Seine. Sure, it does kind of look like trash and another form of graffiti that ruins landmarks, but I think it is pretty romantic and quite entertaining to gaze through all the locks and wonder if these couples are still together or were only intoxicated from the love of Parisian air at the time. I hope by the end of my stay here, I too will be a vandalizer of the Seine river (never thought I'd say something like that). Either it will have my initials and the initials of Pierre somethingorother or twenty others belonging to the girls in my group-I'll be leaving my bit of heart in Paris.