I rode a ferris wheel today. Among everything else--the 100s of years old buildings, the one-way suicidal streets, the crispy croissants, the world-famous Berthillon ice-cream, the forever pungeant smell of urine in the Metro, the taxis which are impossible to hail, the city silence heard only at 6 in the morning, the cigarette pollution, the few precious English bookstores, the ability to meet foreigners from Sweden and Romania and Brazil and yet noone from France itself, the 3 a.m. crepe vendors, the lost Irishmen, the few French starting to ask YOU for directions, the ability to tell a good cheese and a bad wine, the thousands upon thousands of steps everywhere, the bullet-holes left in buildings from the German occupation during WWII, the night buses, the clothing stores that only sell skinny jeans, the churches stuck between an apartment building and a riskay shop of sorts, the American music played in every store, the random Bretagne festivals that don't sell anything but information on the region and still attract huge crowds, the possibility of getting lost on every corner and finding something unique on the next, vespas and pointy shoes and stolen glances on the Metro--among all of this, Paris has a ferris wheel.