Yikes!

I have never received so many emails at once in my entire life. Well maybe for my birthday but that doesn't count. Apparently there was some big evacuation at the Eiffel Tower tonight due to a bomb threat. No worries I am home safe and sound basking in the glory of a full belly from the most amazing pizza I have ever eaten in my life
tonight.  Back to the bomb threat in a minute .... after an amazing week with Ashlee - details and photos to come - and a long day at work, I wanted nothing to do with cooking tonight. So I rounded up my girlfriend and convinced her to join me for something easy and relaxing. Over hearing my need for something tasty a pizza place was recommended that is not so far from my apartment.  It is actually in the Red Light District - the pizza place, NOT my apartment. So tucked away between sex shops and the Moulin Rouge is a place called, "Da Carmine". The owner is a cute little Italian man who brings you a glass of wine if you have to wait, kisses everyone on the cheeks- goodbye and takes your cash at the register with a shot of grappa. Delightful. Not to mention the pizza was unreal. The combinations of flavors was really unique and everything that everyone had around me looked just as mouthwatering as my pizza. Which was a great mix of grilled veggies, italian ham, rocket lettuce, two types of mozzarella - one of which was baked into the crust and freshly shaved parmesan cheese!!!! DELISH.   So if any of you are ever in the area - I would without a doubt recommend this little gem.

As for the bomb scare - I am not close to the Tower and had no immediate plans to visit it this evening, so no problems over here. I can't even imagine the chaos that is going on down there trying to get everyone out of the area and at a safe distance. I have to be honest the tower is always quite packed with people. But I guess that is why they have big guys with machine guns always patrolling.

I made Ashlee take this picture while she was here

Eiffel Tower and surrounding park evacuated

By the CNN Wire Staff

                                      September 14, 2010 -- Updated 2133 GMT (0533 HKT) 

The Eiffel Tower and the park around it were evacuated Tuesday night after authorities received a telephoned bomb threat, police said.

The police press office said the alert, which was reported at 8:20 p.m., was being treated as a routine occurrence and the tower was being inspected to determine whether the threat was real. Around 11 p.m., the perimeter of the inspection -- which included bomb-sniffer dogs -- was drawn back to the base of the tower as the search continued.

A telephoned bomb threat also led authorities to briefly evacuate the St. Michel metro station, police said, according to CNN affiliate BFM-TV. It was reopened within 30 minutes.

Some 2,000 people had been in the area of the Eiffel Tower and the park in which it sits when the evacuation was ordered, police said, according to BFM-TV . Briefly evacuated were a number a nearby apartment buildings and businesses, according to news reports.

"One person on the scene said the police came by and said there was a problem and they had to leave the area quickly, and that's what they did," CNN's Jim Bittermann reported.

A taxi driver said he drove to the tower two tourists who were planning to eat at the Jules Verne Restaurant, where they had made reservations two months ago, but they were turned back by police.

More than 100 cameras -- more than a third of which are infrared for nighttime surveillance -- are located on the monument, according to the tower's website.

It also includes a network of sprinklers, and more than 150 extinguishers. A water pipe from the ground feeds hydrants on the first two floors; the top floor's hydrants get water from pressurized water tanks.

The 324-meter-high (1,063-foot-high) tower is usually open from 9:30 a.m. until 11 p.m. in September. It was built for the Universal Exhibition of 1889, and was intended to last for 20 years, according to the tower's website. But it was saved by the advent of wireless telegraphy -- and its use as a platform for antennae. It currently holds 120 antennae.

The tower weighs 10,100 tons and is held together by 2.5 million rivets.