Bethany: Day One.

So one of my best friends has been here for almost 2 weeks, but she has unfortunately spent a large amount of the time sick in bed. Fortunately, France has doctors. And anitbiotics. Which means she's been able to recover in time for us to take advantage of our free weekend, grab her a museum pass, and do some sight seeing.

Unfortunately, her being sick meant that we missed the day we were supposed to climb the Eiffel Tower, but she was determined to do it, so we tacked it on to the morning of our first day. We (mostly) woke up at 8:30, and headed out the door by 9:15 to the tower. We were hoping to beat out the lines by getting there early, but with only one working elevator, the lines were huge. We decided instead to take the hike up the stairs.

Bethy, falling asleep in line for the stairs.

We got our tickets and started on our way up. Besides taking a few breaks to keep Bethany from dying (she's still a little sick) we made good time on our way to the first two levels.

The 3 hour line for the elevators. We were glad to take the stairs...

Bethany on the first level of the tower.

Sometimes we like to pretend we're still kids...

The trip to the second level was similarly uneventful. They were filming some kind of promo on the second level though, so there were all sorts of camera, light, and sound people everywhere. I'm not sure what it was, all I know is it involved a lot of cheering and clapping... After taking a little break, getting some water, and sneaking along with an English tour group for a moment, we headed to the elevators to the top.

Bethy, on the elevator platform.

The top was... interesting. Bethany is a bit unnerved by heights, but she was so overcome with excitement she went right to the metal fencing and snapping pictures and video. Right after, she would realize she was at the edge, get a little scared, and back away before seeing something new on the horizon and running right back up.

Bethany, excitedly snapping photos.

After realizing she was standing right at the edge.

The Champ de Mars and École Militaire

Bethany, safely standing at the height marker.

After a while she stopped being so nervous and happily taking pictures at the edge. I decided to be a bit of a daredevil myself and risk some awesome pictures...

Sometimes I stick my camera outside of the protective shield...

The tower's shadow reaching out over the bridge.

Then we headed back down to catch some pictures from the far side of the Champ de Mars, grab some lunch, and head over to our first museum.

The rooftop patio of the Musėe d'Orsay.

Bethany at the museum.

After enjoying the Monet, Van Gogh, and Manet at the d'Orsay, we were supposed to climb l'Arc du Triomphe. Bethy wasn't feeling up to it, though, so we decided to head home instead. Unfortunately, we had left our keys in the apartment that morning, and we were hoping that Petry would be home when we got back. She wasn't. So we proceeded to wait in the stair well. For 7 hours...

I was able to get some interesting pictures of our stairs though!

To be fair, we did leave after a few hours in, then came back. It turns out, Petry had actually come home during that time and then gone back out again. It was nice to meet our neighbors, though, and we even were lent some blankets by a very nice couple upstairs. Petry came home shortly after that, and we were quickly on our way to bed for our next day at Versailles.