Fear of heights

We went to the Eiffel Tower today. A very impressive piece of business. Tall, made of metal, that kind of thing. The lines were long but not ridiculous. I'd been there before but only walked up the stairs to the first level. The view from the top was amazing, and it wasn't nearly as scary as one might expect. I'm not really afraid of heights, but I'm not overly fond of them either, and the view looking up from the middle level, while beautiful, was shiver-inducing.

When I see things like this (not that I can really think of anything else like this) I always wonder about what people thought when they first built it, in this case in 1889. What would be just as amazing now? And could you go to the bathroom up there like you can now? I know that Eiffel was a genius, but did he really have indoor plumbing in mind when he built this?

By the time we got down and had a late lunch (we're still kind of on US time, 6 hours earlier) the tower was sparkling with strobe lights. Great stuff. This city really knows how to do it up for the holidays. The Champs Elysees was also lit beautifully, with all the trees either sparkling of having a kind of falling start effect, and many of the streets have their own special decorations.

Paris first two days