One Girl and a Big World

Welcome back to a new blog!

Summer is finally kicking off. My brother is graduated, the pool is open, and church camp is approaching.

For this week’s travel blog, I will recount a story that happens quite often when we travel and it has to do with my fear of heights… oh boy.

Many of Europe’s beautiful buildings or structures were considered skyscrapers when they were built. The summer before I began 7th grade, our family took a vacation to Europe. The first country on the itinerary was Paris, France. Two of the most iconic Parisian structures are of course Notre Dame and the Eiffel Tower.

On the first full day in Paris, we visited Notre Dame. Before the fire raged through the Gothic style Catholic church, it was a beautiful building with colorful mosaics, incredible sculptures, and high vaulted ceilings. After a trip around the inside of the whole church, my mom REALLY, and I mean, REALLY, wanted to climb the bell towers. I was not happy about this decision. I am not a fan of heights, but I did not complain too bad (because I did not know what was really coming).

Off we go, hiking the bell towers. What I remember from the climb were stone steps all the way to the top. Once at the top however, I was about to kill my family. When you exit onto the terrace that surrounds the bell tower, it gives you a really beautiful view of the city. It also gave me a panic attack. The whole walk around the bell tower, I was stuck to the wall. If someone tried to pull me off the wall, I would just pull back. As long as I could not see down, I was relatively calm, but the second my back could not feel the stone wall, I began to panic. After what seemed like an eternity, we walked around the full bell tower and I was more than happy to descend down to level ground.

A couple days later, the Eiffel Tower was next on the list. Once again, my mother wanted to take an elevator to the second to last level of the tower. One level more, and we would have entered the restaurant atop the tower. The elevator ride up was anxiety inducing enough. Once at the top, we got out and you can walk around the terrace. I refused to step close to the railing. We were WAYYYYY to0 high.

After we had walked around that level, we descended down the lowest and widest level. In the center of this level, there were glass floors. That was a no-no. There is something about looking down hundreds of feet below you that makes your heart drop to your stomach and your breath to catch. My dad thought it was a marvelous idea to pull me onto the glass floor. What ensued was a scream leaving my body that was so loud it attracted eyes all over towards me. I scrambled RIGHT OFF. I yelled so loud I scared two younger ladies away from the glass floor. I may have been on top of the world, but it was not my cup of tea.

When my feet touched ground, I breathed a sigh of relief and prayed to never have to go through something like that again. That prayer was not granted. Stay tuned and subscribe for another blog post next week. It involves a real life “prop” in an iconic Mission Impossible moment.

Until next time!