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The elevator down to the second level was so tightly packed that I could barely get my camera out of my knapsack, let alone turn around and face the window, so I just pointed the camera over my shoulder and hoped for the best. The Seine (you can see a patch of it at the bottom of the picture) looks horribly polluted these days. In the early nineties, when Chirac was still Mayor of Paris, people talked a lot about massive cleanup programs that were going to make the Seine swimmable by now. You don't hear too much about that any more. |
| It was less crowded on the second level. I briefly considered sending Mark a cheesy postcard with an Eiffel Tower postmark, but I realized that I didn't have his mailing address handy. |
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| The sign on the mailbox explains that, due to Vigipirate, the mailboxes are no longer used, and you have to take your mail directly to the post office. Vigipirate is the anti-terrorism ordinance that, among other things, sealed 25,000 Parisian garbage cans to stop people from putting bombs in them. Or garbage. |
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Apparently, this explains the mathematical principles underlying the shape of the Eiffel Tower. Or you can just look at it. That's what I do. |
| I thought that if there was a logical location for a payphone, it would be in or next to the snack bar. But no. And now I'd used up eleven out of sixteen pictures. Time to go down some more. |
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| Yes, that's my reflection. |