Who needs the elevator? Not Carter! Not Mrs. Altchek! And not me! The result was unanimous, to the top of the Eiffel tower without it. When we got to the first step, I was shaking. I’m not a big fan of heights…but there was sure to be fun at the top. Mrs.A started going up without hesitation, so I put a foot onto the first metal step, making sure it would hold my weight. I took a deep breath and started up after Mrs.A, Carter close behind. We soon realized that every ten steps there was a number marking that steps number, so we took a picture of each hundred as proof we made it to the top, and we did. We saw the vast area of Paris below us light and foggy. There were telescopes, so I used one and when Carter came to stand next to me, I saw a punch buggy through the telescope! “Punch buggy!” I yelled and playfully punched his arm. “WHAT?” He yelled. I told him how I saw the punch buggy through the telescope. Good old Carter he didn’t get mad or say I was cheating, he just laughed. Sometimes I really love my brother. We were about to leave when we saw a dozen or so 4 year olds on a field trip! “A field trip to the Eiffel Tower” Mrs.A mused “Why not?” I think we took about a million pictures of the pre-school student as they talked to each other in cute little French pre-school voices. “Tu aime la Tour de Eiffel?”  “Oui, et toi?” When we were at the bottom of the Eiffel Tower, we were joking that we could run to the top backwards, so that’s what we did to get to the bottom. We set the pace as a light jog and ever so carefully made our way backwards, stopping every 3 or 4 steps to look back. This became too slow, so we jogged faster forwards. When we got back down we met Mom and Dad and told them how disappointed we all were that our legs didn’t sting as much as we had hoped. It wasn’t nearly as hard as we thought. Probably because we had to stop every ten seconds so Carter could take a picture. But just because it wasn’t as hard as I thought, didn’t mean it didn’t leave my legs trembling. We were all hungry, so we caught a bus and went to lunch. I checked climbing the Eiffel Tower stairs off my mental list. NOTE from Gina and Russ:  We were lucky to be joined for our Armistice Day long weekend by jet-setter Beth Altcheck, who popped in from Boston for a long weekend of fun Paris-style.  We also met her friend who is living in Paris right now, James Armstrong.  Like us, James loves Paris and has spent quite a bit of time learning French and exploring the city.  The kids knew James because he runs a cool field study with Beth each year on the topic of planetary motion and we had already met in Paris to share a meal and see some of his photographs.  Architect, artist, author, naturalist and puzzler, he is an amazing Renaissance man!  The pictures below are from the entire weekend and include several walks, restaurants and museums in addition to the photochronicle of Katherine, Carter and Beth's adventure at La Tour Eiffel.