Saturday, April 17, 2010

Effiel Tower

So I was really excited to post my indepth Paris blog, but then I realized that I only have my pictures of the Effiel Tower uploaded onto my computer right now. So I guess I'll just have to do a post on the Effiel Tower, but that is alright because I have a TON of information on Paris to talk about, and this will help split it up pretty nicely.

Here is the view coming into Paris. On cloudy days the Effiel Tower can disappear into the mist, and you can't see it that well from a distance. Luckily, even though it was a cloudy day in this particular picture you can see the Effiel Tower and a good portion of Paris.
Does this look familar?? This is the miniture statue of Liberty. The original statue of Liberty which resides in New York now was built in Paris and given to the United States as a present for our independence. Each piece was built and then shipped over! The US donated this miniture verison to Paris. She is about 1/8 the size of our statue of Liberty, and could fit in our statues hand, but I still thought that it was cool. I was the geeky American taking pictures!!

I'm a big fan of this picture. I really liked it. You can see the little statue of Liberty and the Effiel Tower in the distance. I think it's very symbolic, and I felt proud seeing them together. So many countries seem to be anti-America these days, and they don't want America to influence them, but this felt like a very friendly gesture to me, and it was a little bit touching to see.


The Effiel Tower was built in 1889 and was only supposed to be in Paris for 20 years for an exhibit that was touring in Paris. People were orginally against it being built, because they didn't trust it. They thought that it would fall over and destroy the city. However, after the alloted time it obviously grew on the people, and became an intricate part of Paris and even France in general... so the people decided that it could stay after all.



Here is a view from right under it looking up. It's a huge structure made up entirely of metal. Nyree is afraid of heights, and when we went onto the second level of the tower she really stressing out. I understood once we got into the elevator and it moved up on an angle... not just straight up. It was like going up a hill. It felt like the elevator was moving more sideways then up at some points, but we made it in the end!

You have to be careful walking around in Paris, because there are soooo many guys selling things illegally on the side of the streets. They come up to you clinging all of their keychains, watches, purses, scrafs, umbrellas, Effiel Tower replicas, and anything else they think they can sell. The place was literally FULL of them. Every city in Europe seems to have them, but right next to the Effiel Tower was almost overwhelming. Once police come they all grab their stuff and run away before the police can catch them to arrest them. But they stick their stuff right in your face, and really try to get you to buy stuff. Then once you get away from that one another one comes up to you!! Ah! They were selling Effiel Tower keychain 1 for 1 Euro mostly. One guy was selling it 3 for 1 Euro. Then the next day we went to Notre Dam and a guy was selling them 10 for 1 there. I can't imagine how cheaply they must get them. The gift shops sell them for at least 1.50 a piece.

Here I am on the second level of the Effiel Tower!

Here is the view off of the Effiel Tower of Paris. I would try to point things out to you in the distance, but I think it will make more sense after I've shown you the close ups tomorrow night when I'm back in Aberdeen!! I hate to say it, but I'm tired of traveling. I'm currently in Edinburgh and it's been hard to take notes and pictures. I guess I'm burnt out. I can't wait for some time to sleep in my bed with my comforter tomorrow night!! Ahh but yes... back to being on the second story of the Effiel Tower!
I'm sad that this picture came out so dark, but it's Me, Bobby, and Nyree. It was so bright out that day... I think it's why the shadows are in my pictures.

Oh here is a better one!! You probably can't tell from the picture, but we were all cracking up in the picture, because Bobby was terrified that his favorite hate was going to go flying off the Effiel Tower, because it was really windy up there!! Poor guy... his mom was taking the pictures, and of course we had to take pictures with all three of our cameras!! So he kept having to do a hat check inbetween takes.

This is probably one of my favorite pictures in Paris. We were standing on the second level and Bobby's mom, Venessa, went on a level below us and took a picture of us looking down with the rest of the tower in the background. It was really awesome on the Effiel Tower. I'm glad that we go to go up there and walk around. It was a lot of fun being with Bobby and Nyree. I really missed them today in Edinburgh when I was going around by myself. :(


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