In Paris

We arrived in Paris on the afternoon of New Years Day. We took a double decker bus tour to see the sights of Paris. We sat on the top that was open. It started drizzling. We saw the Arc de Triumphe, the Seine River, the Louvre, Notre Dame Cathedral and the Eiffel Tower. We went back to our hotel and got to bed so we could go on our tours in the morning.

My mother and my sister went on a tour of the Louvre museum while my daddy and I went on a tour of the Eiffel Tower on January 2, 2012. Our tour guide, Haley, explained a lot to me. I learned that Gustaf Eiffel was not the original designer of the tower. He actually bought the original plans from two other architects for 100,000 francs. He put his name on the plans and submitted them to the contest to build something for the World Fair for 1889. Thomas Edison was a presenter at the World Fair in 1889 also.

They started working on the construction of the tower in January of 1887 and it was done on March 31, 1889. It took two years, two months and five days to complete it. It is repainted every seven years and takes 18 months to paint completely. When the Eiffel Tower was first built it was lit up by 10,000 gas lanterns. Today it is lit up by 20,000 electric lights. Only one person fell to his death during the construction of the tower.

They have had people bungie jump and sky dive off the tower but they usually get arrested. When we got down to the first level, my father and I ice skated on the skating rink on the first floor of the Eiffel Tower. It was fun. We also got an Eiffel Tower for Bob to sit underneath. Later that night, we all went back to see the Tower lit up. We got back there at about 7:55 pm and at 8 pm the Eiffel Tower put on a five minute light show that was awesome. The lights all over the tower flashed on and off like strobe lights. Bob really liked the Eiffel Tower. I ponted out to Haley that the line waiting to go up in the Eiffel Tower looked like a dinosaur. The world record for running up all the stairs from thr very bottom to the very top is 8 minutes and 51 seconds.  Do you think Bob is in any of these pictures???