I stayed on the Eiffel Tower that night until well after sunset. The full moon was on one side and the fading light was on the other. A very magical time, no wonder all the couples headed for the top stood around holding each other close. It was just a little lonely being probably the only solo traveller at the top, but what a great view.

   Earlier that day I had walked right across town, probably coming to about 22km. My feet are still hurting a bit, but Norway is my goal so I must continue. On Sunday I moved across to another hostel, The Three Ducks. Which is a bit of a pit, but in a friendly way. Quite noisy and very busy. There I met another long distance hiker. Scott (Canada) is a serious long distance walker, he is about to start some mammoth trek across Europe totalling about 880 miles, well out of my league. He introduced me to five girls from the states and along with Barry and Alex we went to the Fireman's Ball. Every year on July 13th fire houses across Paris invite the public to have a big party in their halls (or in this case a courtyard). A great party except for the firemen who kept getting on the bar to take their shirts off. I bet that was their main motivation for the whole party idea in the first place.

   Without much sleep Barry and I set off for the parade in the morning. Due to closed subway stations and crowd control we were walking along a side street when the first fly over happened, between buildings we could see the coloured smoke trails and some big planes whizz past. The parade itself was mostly army stuff which didn't interest me, but we both tried to climb trees for a better view anyway. We even got on top of a tourist information booth :-), but we were told to come down pretty quickly :-(

   I walked back to my previous hostel to retrieve my NZ power adapter and by the time I got there was desperately dehydrated having misjudged the distance and heat

   That night I went to dinner with Kate, Emily, Jen, Connie, Nicole, Crisha and Klare, mmmm chinese food mmmm. A few joined and a few left by the time we got to the Eiffel Tower in time for the big fireworks display. It didn't start until well after 11 but when it did it was very cool. The crowd was unusually quiet, expect for when it got really pretty. I took a ton of photos that have just been burned to CD and have managed to upload one here. It's big, but nice.

   I am wasting my day away in Paris until my train leaves tonight for Copenhagen and then I am going on to Olso and then Jotunheimen Park.

   Oh, last night I met Holland, a fellow Pamplona survivor. He has been to Greece, and told me about Santorini. It seems as though it will be everything I imagined, I can't wait!

Now in full motion video watch as the Effiel Tower sparkles in the night. (3.7mb)

Me, Kate, Nicole, Emily, Chrisha, Jen, Klare and Connie