Showering under the Tower!

So we did go to the Eiffel Tower and that will be a night that we will never forget.

We wanted to go at night to see the city. They say that from the top, you can see up to 40 miles in every direction. Getting there was a chore as usual as the Paris metro does not have that many stops for a city of its size. After avoiding the sellers (one actually chased Bryan after Bryan asked him a question, it was hilarious) we got in a line.

They light up the tower at 10:00pm and it shimmers for 5 minutes on the hour for the next several hours. In line it started to sprinkle and we could see lightning off in the distance. Most people might be worried about going up in a metal tower during a lightning storm but not us. We are.... um.... brave. Sadly, we got in the line to take the stairs up to the second platform (ugh).

Suddenly, the skies openned up and it rained like no other. The world was coming to an end!

People ran in every which way trying to seek cover. It would have been funnier had we not been some of those people. The freak flash rain storm lasted about 10 minutes. It was so powerful that it knocked over the metal gates. While huddling for cover with 20 other toursits, a seller (damn they are persistent) came around with umbrellas for €20. Too late I yelled at him over the storm, I am already wet. He considered this and then offered me one for €5.

As the storm died down a bit we saw our chance to move to the front of an elevator line and ran for it across the bottom of the tower. We jumped over the little gates to the front of the line and got our tickets. I personally think this was God's way of saying that we should not take the stairs, haha.

Because of the storm though thet closed the top so we could only get to the second platform. It was still pretty cool though and we continued to whatch the lightning from there.

After freezing for 30 minutes we headed back to the hotel. We only had to jump one metro gate (they all went off-line in the storm and refused to open) and some how managed to catch the last train on every line that we needed back.

We will always remember this night as the night that we ALMOST got to the top of the Eiffel Tower.

I guess we will just have to go back, oh darn.