(E.A. Part 17)

Day 17.

Today Dani and Megan woke Cole and I up. Both of our heads of hair were messed up and pointing outward everywhere. We took our showers and got ready for the day. We filled our sport bags with headphones, journals, and water bottles. When we went down to breakfast everyone was eating cereal. I got a big bowl of Trix and and cup of coffee. After breakfast we all got on the bus and drove for an hour to our destination. We were dropped off in a huge open area. There was a magazine shoot happening at the time and we all saw about 8 different models. We could also see the eiffel tower and it was huge. I just rememeber thinking that I've only seen the eiffel tower in pictures and to see it in person was just unbelievable. We all walked through a vast system of paths that led through parks, over bridges, up and down sets of stairs, and a lot of interesting structures until we finally got to the Eiffel Tower. It was HUGE! We all got in line in front of one of the legs of the Eiffel Tower and got tickets to go up. We all got partners and Cole and I went up the lift that led to the top. We got halfway and had to walk to an elevator that led to the very top. We got lots of pictures and had an awesome time. We decided walking down would be a new experience so we did that. It took about 20 minutes to get from the top to the mid section. We then joined up with Brian, Dani, Tyler, Jake, Kara, Megan, Allyson, Maddy, Dylan, and Daisy. We all got a sprite and pizza roll that was at the moment being sold at the heart of the Eiffel Tower. We were really tired so we just waited 10 minutes for the lift to take us down. No one wanted to walk down anymore. Once we got to the bottom we figured we had one hour of free time. So we started negotiating with street vendors about getting little trinkets. We all got drinks and sat down. We saw military men with guns come and force out the street vendors who were selling illegal merchandise. We got a picture with one of the military man. Afterwards we all met up as a delegation outside one of the stands around the Eiffel Tower. We started heading in a different direction to meet Gary. On our way we saw a man propose and we all clapped. hahaa  

When we got to the bus we silently road for a few minutes to the Louvre Museum. We got out and got our tickets to go in. We had to wait an hour so we went down the road to shop a little bit. I got a sweatshirt and an Eiffel Tower pendant. I helped other people shop a little bit too. We left the shops and walked back to The Louvre where we were all checked by security. We split up the delegation into two groups and we all toured different parts of the huge complex museum. We saw alot of different famous paintings. We went underground for a moment and saw a model of a brick wall with a projector shining soldiers fighting along the wall. When we got to the Mona Lisa, everyone was a little shocked by its size. We all thought it would be much bigger but it was a about two feet in both directions. We saw a few artistic sculptures too. We didn't get much time to tour everything so when it was time to go we all went down the escalators that led to the bottom of the complex and went to the parking garage that we met Gary at. We drove back to our hotel and went to our rooms to put on our swimming suits. We all met at the pool and everyone though the water was really cool. Cole and I had a weird (back-flip into the water) contest and we both won. We had chicken wars and water fights and we all had alot of fun. When we went back to our room for the night me and Cole watch a stand up comedy with our weird "Paris Candy" snacks. It was a skinny breaded pretzil covered in chocolate. Then we went to bed and that was that. It had already been such an amazing trip