A walk to the Eiffel Tower
I expected the Eiffel Tower to be an impressive structure. But frankly, like most people I’ve seen a lot of those.
I almost didn’t walk over to the tower at all today. I had taken a bunch of photos from afar as I wandered the area nearby, and I felt sure it would be a tourist trap at the bottom of the tower. I got some good photos over at Napoleon’s Tomb (or whatever that place is called), and I almost walked back to the hotel after that because it rained for a little while. But the sun came out, and I had a Cuban cigar from Oktoberfest (and a non-smoking room), so I decided to stroll on over and see what I felt sure would be a tourist trap and find a nice place to sit in the shade and smoke my cigar.
And a tourist trap it was. The lines to go up to the top were so long I never even considered waiting in them, and there were various scam artists working the crowd. A cute young Bosnian girl asked me if I spoke English and I foolishly said yes, then she put on this incredibly sad face and showed me a crude note that explained she was living with her Mom as a refugee in Paris and needed money. “Please, please, Mister” she begged, and I laughed her off and then felt like a jerk. Note for not giving her money — for not thinking to take a nice closeup of her routine, of course! The traditional dress, the bright colors, the long wavy hair, the “cry me a river” eyes; it would have been gorgeous.
But outside of a 100-yard radius around the tower, it was a quite different scene. There were no scams at all (that I ran into), just lots of Parisians out on a Sunday afternoon doing whatever turned them on: walk the dog, toss a Frisbee, play basketball (on unicycles and in wheelchairs, no less), rollerblade, fence, kick-box, make out ( between humans or pigeons), and lots of other activities. There were little girls waiting for a chance to do competitive gymnastics routines, firemen giving kids and their Moms a chance to try out a real live fire hose, guys playing jazz to raise money for environmental causes, and kids just having fun everywhere while adults snapped pictures. And many of the people doing these routines were very creative and acrobatic. Cirque Du Soleil must have started when some French guy went to the Eiffel Tower on a sunny Sunday afternoon and said “hey, if we get professional dancers to do all this stuff on stage in Las Vegas, those dumb American tourists will pay a fortune for it!”
I could be wrong about that, but it was definitely entertaining and worth the sore feet it took to get over there and back. (My blisters from seven hours of walking around Oktoberfest got a lot worse today. It sucks being human sometimes.)
After posting all the thumbnails for the Oktoberfest photos below, I decided not to bother doing thumbnails for all these Paris shots — the home page is starting to load a bit slower than I’d like with all the graphics I’ve added lately. So you have to actually step through the Paris photos one at a time. If that doesn’t sound too tedious, you can click the image above to start at the beginning or click on any one of the other links above to start somewhere in the middle.
This entry was posted on Sunday, October 1st, 2006 at 2:42 pm. You can subscribe to comments on this post through its RSS feed.
on October 1, 2006 at 6:50 pm Tom wrote:
Great, great pics. I hope you get a chance to go to the Louvre at some point - I know it’s kind of a hackneyed tourist spot from a photographic perspective, but the best art in the world is there.
I particularly like your people-kiss/pigeon-kiss array, and I worry about the guy with the crutch clutching his left arm. But your pictures confirm what Lizzie’s pics several years ago showed: Paris is a beautiful place, and fall makes it even better. Enjoy the hell out of it if you can!
on October 1, 2006 at 8:29 pm George Siede wrote:
Oktoberfest and Paris - great photos! Glad to see you are keeping up with the pigeon shots. Looks like those Germans are every bit as wacky as us Americans - but shouldn’t this event be in October?
Ironicaly, I was just thinking today about a photo I have of a fire-breathing street performer I shot in Paris - longer ago than I care to admit.
by the way, you were spot on with your assesment as to the street performer origins of Cirque du Soleil but it was on this side of the Atlantic.
And now, more than you ever wanted to know about that…
Cirque du Soleil started in Baie-Saint-Paul, a small town near Quebec City, Canada. In the early eighties, a band of colourful characters roamed the streets there, striding on stilts, juggling, dancing, breathing fire, and playing music. They were Les Échassiers de Baie-Saint-Paul (the Baie-Saint-Paul Stiltwalkers), a street theatre group founded by Gilles Ste-Croix. One of the young performers was Guy Laliberté who became founder and CEO of Cirque du Soleil.
The troupe went on to found Le Club des talons hauts (the High Heels Club), and then, in 1982, organized La Fête foraine de Baie-Saint-Paul, a cultural event in which street performers from all over met to exchange ideas and enliven the streets of the town for a few days. La Fête foraine was repeated in 1983 and 1984. Le Club des talons hauts attracted notice, and Guy Laliberté, Gilles Ste-Croix and their cronies began to cherish a crazy dream: to create a Quebec circus and take the troupe travelling around the world.
In 1984, Quebec City was celebrating the 450th anniversary of Canada’s discovery by Jacques Cartier, and they needed a show that would carry the festivities out across the province. Guy Laliberté presented a proposal for a show called Cirque du Soleil (Circus of the Sun), and succeeded in convincing the organizers. And Cirque du Soleil hasn’t stopped since!
A Few Statistics
* In 1984, 73 people worked for Cirque du Soleil. Today, the business has 3,000 employees worldwide, including more than 600 artists.
* At the Montreal International Headquarters alone, there are 1,600 employees.
* The average age of employees is 34.
* Cirque’s employees and artists represent over 40 nationalities and speak 25 different languages.
* Since 1984, Cirque du Soleil’s touring shows have made nearly 250 stops in close to 100 cities around the world.
* Over 42 million spectators have seen a Cirque du Soleil show.
* Almost 7 million people saw a Cirque du Soleil show in 2003.
* Cirque du Soleil is currently presenting ten different shows:
Touring shows:
o Varekai (North American tour)
o Dralion (European tour)
o Quidam (Australian tour)
o Alegría (Japanese tour)
o Saltimbanco (European tour)
Resident Theatres:
Walt Disney World® Resort in Orlando, Florida (”La Nouba”)
Treasure Island in Las Vegas, Nevada (”Mystère”)
Bellagio in Las Vegas, Nevada (”O”)
New York New York Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada (”ZUMANITY”)
MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada (”KÀ”)
on October 1, 2006 at 11:03 pm Doug wrote:
Well George, I guess they don’t have a Paris show because people here get that stuff for free. By the way, I’ve seen “O” and Varekai — both very impressive, but I like “O” the most.
Did you see the stuff about Cirque Du Soleil’s HIV scandal a couple years ago? I think the general story was, they fired somebody for being HIV-positive, saying that the work they do has a high probability of minor bloody injuries so they must be very careful, but the rumor was that there’s a lot of casual sex amongst the performers and management was worried about it spreading through the ranks. Last I heard, lawyers were sharpening their knives and drooling over the cash flow from statistics like those above.
Hey Tom, Paris *is* beautiful in the fall, but now I’m really glad I went out to take pictures yesterday — it’s dark overcast this morning, looks like a cold miserable day coming. This will make it much easier to get some work done.
on October 1, 2006 at 11:33 pm nick wrote:
Great pics as normal but you forgot to call me to come along as the offical camera bag boy, oh well maybe next time.. I know that people in diffrent parts of the world do things diffrently, but I think bike tires still need air in them, and was that a guy in a dress or a lady with lots of hair on the chiny chin chin? The Eifel (not shure on spelling) tower looks cool close up, I have seen lots of pics from afar but none that close up. just think of the man hours needed to put that together, WOW. hugs and have fun on the rest of the trip.
on October 2, 2006 at 1:16 am Doug wrote:
Nick, of course you would think about putting together the Eiffel Tower. If I had to build an Eiffel Tower, I’d want you on the job.
But unfortunately, I’m spending so damn much money here that I can’t get justification for a camera bag boy on this trip. I just had the breakfast buffet, and it was the equivalent of $38 American. Geez. They even make you pay up front, before they seat you, which makes sense since that’s an amount worth dining and dashing over. Forgot my wetsuit on this trip, so I just paid the fee.
But you’re here virtually — your comments are sitting right here in Paris as soon as you click Submit. Ain’t the internet grand?
on October 2, 2006 at 6:54 am George Siede wrote:
Nope, I didn’t hear about the HIV scandal or the casual sex but with all those physically fit acrobatic people, the ropes, the scaves, the costumes … I can only imagine.
There was a fascinating documentary series on Bravo a while back about what it takes to put together a new show, following the procedure closely from start to finish including the global search for musical weirdness and performers.
I saw Mystère when I was out in Vegas at their original theatre which was fabulous and also caught one of the traveling shows here in St Louis a few years ago.
George