Rewind: Bastille Day

Today was Eiffel Tower Day!  We woke up early (not as early as we wanted, we missed some jet show they were doing early in the morning) and were off on the subway to Le Tour Eiffel.
Quick story about what happened to me on the subway: we were rushing to catch the train and a guy behind me was also rushing and stepped on my sandal and broke it.  I almost fell and Aaron got pissed because the guy didn't even say sorry!  I'm telling you, it's no joke what people say about the French: they are straight up assholes!  This guys broke my $25 Roxy sandal, which I loved btw, tripped me and just kept on walking without a word.  Jerk!  So, now I'm barefoot the whole ride on the subway, the whole way out of the subway (eww!) and walking along the street trying to find a store selling shoes.  We finally found a kiosk selling corny Paris sandals, so this is what I'm stuck with now:

Parisian people can suck my dirty, subway-pee-covered big toe!  Okay, back to the Eiffel Tower.

Ta da:

It was magnificent!  You see it on TV all the time, but to see it in person was marvelous!  It's giant and the detailing is so intricate, let's get closer!

We were determined to go up to the top, no matter how long the line:

Or how many military men with giant guns were guarding it:

I'll admit, seeing all the military pacing around all over Paris did kinda freak me out.  However, good to know they're armed and ready should (God forbid) another terrorist attack happen.  Obviously, nothing happened while we were there, whew!

And take a look at this beauty:

The legs are where the elevators are that take you up to the top.  You can either walk or take an elevator (guess which one we chose).

Up to the first level:

Then we had to wait in line AGAIN to go up to the top level.  

I took a video, but these annoying-ass teenagers were talking the whole time, so try not to pay attention.  

Teenagers are just as irritating as The French.

They're setting up for the concert!

The Louve:

Then down we went to get seats for the concert.

It was picnic style, so we brought a blanket and sat in the grass.  I spread out all our snacks:

Then we waited.  We were there about 1pm and the concert didn't start until around 8pm, but it was so nice to sit under the Eiffel Tower for the day and have a picnic.  Super fun!  We got to hear the rehearsals, so essentially we got to see the show twice.  

Somewhere Over The Rainbow Rehearsal

See the Eiffel Tower in his glasses?  Whoa, we're so artsy.

There's Aaron holding our spot:

More people arriving:

It's full!

Here we go!

They passed out tons of glow sticks:

It's beautiful!

There was a full orchestra playing classical music, check it out!

French national anthem

I freakin love this song

Then they did the fireworks show and let me tell you, I've seen some pretty good fireworks shows in my day (Las Vegas New Years, Disneyland, even on TV), but nothing even touched Paris.  It was magical.  I'll post all the videos, but for those who can't watch them, I took a few pics as well.  Keep in mind, this was so long!  It was easily over 30 minutes, so there are quite a few videos.

Fireworks 1

Fireworks 2

Fireworks 3

Fireworks 4

Fireworks 5

Fireworks 6

Fireworks 7

Fireworks 8

Fireworks 9

Fireworks 10

Fireworks 11

Fireworks 12

Okay, whew!  Now a couple pictures:

Aftermath:

The streets were insane afterwards:

We walked around with the crowd and the energy was electric!

I got hungry and saw this:

Whoa!  I need one of those right now!

We walked around the city all night and bar hopped a bit.  The next day, we slept and relaxed at the hostel, but we did make sure to see The Arc de Triomphe:

  Amazing!

Hope you enjoyed Paris as much as we did!  Next up: Nice!