Katie Doyle, Girl About Town

Tuesday, Sept. 26, 2006 - 2:30 p.m.

edited to add images, 8:58pm PDST

I went back to the Eiffel Tower today, to take sunset pictures. It was overcast and blechy earlier in the day, but by 5 it was better. I meant to leave then, but my foot was giving me some trouble, so I did a little research on the web and decided the tetracycline ointment I was using was causing the problem, so I just stuck a bandaid on instead of using more ointment. By the time I worked all that out, it was near 7, so I cruised to the Eiffel. I might have gotten some good stuff from the northeast side, and then I walked over to the Trocadero, stopping to take some pictures of the Seine on the way. It was dark, so I don't know how well they'll come out, but on the way back up the stairs, I noticed there was a carousel horse near the wall (there's a carousel up there), so I took some pictures of it and the Eiffel Tower. But I was way down below, and there was a damned lightpost in the way, which sucked, so when I got back up to the top, I tried to get into a good position right behind the horse. But someone working at the snack shack there parked his damn scooter right where I needed to be, so I couldn't get a good picture of the horse and tower, and I was getting pretty frustrated. Until I hit on the idea of climbing the light pole. So, um, that's what I did, with my bigass, fairly heavy canvas bag slung across my chest and hanging off of my right hip, clinging to my camera, and then leaning waaaaayyyy the hell out with my thumb on the shutter and stretched out as far as I could get, trying to get a good angle on both the horse and the tower, clinging to the pole with my other arm wrapped around it for dear life, shoes precariously perched on a curve in the pole. And then when I was done, I realized there was a long line of people waiting to buy snacks, and they were all looking at me like I was insane, or an idiot, or both. I gingerly climbed down and walked around the line like it was the most normal thing in the entire world to climb a light pole in Paris to get a picture of a carousel horse and the Eiffel Tower, and this one guy made eye contact with me and grinned, and I grinned back. I managed to hold it until I got around to the back of the snack shack, but then I started laughing. I can't believe I actually climbed a frigging light pole and hung out into air, for a picture. It better be a good one!

And here is is, so you be the judge. I think I need to go back and shoot more; this was the best of the bunch.

Heady on that success, when I got to the Trocadero, I walked out on the fountain ledge to take a picture of the center pool with the Tower behind it, and um, yeah, that sucked. As you may remember, I am totally afraid of heights. So there I am, with a small 3' drop on one side, and a freaking 20-30' drop on the other (it gets deeper the further out you go), and dude, it sucked. I was okay when I stopped at the midpoint; it was scary, but I could cope. But when I went all the way to the end and knelt down for that one, I suddenly got hideously scared. I wanted to take one more picture, but I figured I'd better get my ass off that ledge before fear took over and I couldn't move, which happened to me in college, the one and only time I went out on the grid, and Chris Heldman and JW had to rescue me. Because I'm sorry, but once is about as many times as I can hang in midair 25' above the ground with nothing but my balance to save me. And stretching 4" for the next pole when you've let go of the last one and are suspended 25' in the air is a bad time to discover that. So when I felt that same fear starting to move on my ass out there on that ledge, I decided discretion was the better part of valor and hightailed it back to nice, wide, level ground, repeating "I will not fall, I will not fall, I will not fall," the entire way. And okay, yes, the ledge I was on was 3' wide, but that doesn't matter a whole helluva lot when you have an irrational fear of heights, and there's a very long drop on one side of you, and it's dark.

Here's the picture. About 2' in front of me is a sheer drop off.

So I got back to happy ground and took a few more pictures from the relative safety of the Trocadero's upper terrace, and then I came home. And now, if you don't mind, I have an experiment in cheese waiting for me in the kitchen. :)

Peace out,
Katie

ps. my cheesy experiment, while not a stunning success, also did not suck. :)

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