Paris 4

Today Matt, Paul and I caught up on our sightseeing and are just now finishing up a whirlwind day in Paris. In the morning, we met up with Hannah and visited Notre Dame on the island in the middle of the Thames. After getting lost a few times, we finally found the cathedral and its assorted gypsies.

Alas, there were no hunchbacks but we did hear the bell toll more than few times. The cathedral, itself, was absolutely beautiful. It was designed in typical, massive gothic style with beautiful ceilings inside and flying buttresses outside to hold the structure up. Even more impressive, however, were the myriad stained glass windows in the cathedral.

After we left the cathedral, Paul got into a scuffle with a local dog (he won) and then we left Hannah and headed back to Montmartre because I forgot our Eiffel Tower tickets in our hostel room. After a really quick siesta, we took the metro to the Arc De Triomphe. As soon as we got out from underground, I was overwhelmed by the sheer size of the monument. It was much larger than I expected and dominates that entire region of Paris.

After searching for a way to get to the center of the Arc roundabout without having to play real life frogger, we finally found a tunnel that took us to the center and we got to observe the Arc from the center.

Next, we headed to the Eiffel Tower. As stated a few days ago, I have a legitimate, childish, unexplainable fear of heights and so I was getting really nervous about ascending an old, narrow and very, very tall tower. We got our tickets online last night so we were able to avoid the dreadfully long queues but, instead, walked up a little bit before 4:30 to go up. I was actually a little more nervous at the second level than the third level (the top).

The elevator ride up only started hitting me as we neared the top but I found that the ride went a lot easier if I just kept looking up. When we got to the top, Paul and Matt immediately went to the outdoor observation area (even higher than where the lift dropped us off) and I nervously followed them. They walked right to the edges while I gripped the inner walls for dear life. As time went on, however, I got a little more comfortable at the top and managed to get a lot of really rewarding photos of Paris from high above. The city is really, amazingly beautiful from that vantage point. I got up the courage to stand at the edge a few times and got some photos with Paul and Matt as well.

After a good half hour at the top of the tower, we waited in the long line to get back down to ground level and then hiked to the metro to go back to Montmartre. Dinner was a mozarella and tomato salad that I made myself and another Parisian TV dinner. Delicious!

-Simon