Bastille Day!

So let's begin with the history. Bastille Day, which is a holiday celebrated in France on July 14, is a day symbolic of their freedom. To correspond this to an American equivalent, this is France's Independence Day. So the Bastille was a building that was built as a means to protect the citizens of Paris from attacks from the English in 1370. It was later used as a prison for the wealthy and people the king just had a problem with. To the people this prison began to "symbolize the tyranny of the Bourbon monarchs." So mobs began to form when King Louis XVI surrounded Paris with troops and fired Jacques Necker from his position as minister of state, who had supported the reforms. In 1789, the prison was attacked and after a while Bernard-René Jordan de Launay surrendered and the seven prisoners were free to go. King Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette were executed for treason. This was the end of the monarch and the beginning of the French Revolution.

The way Bastille Day is typically celebrated now a days is there is a military parade down the Champs-Elysées, there are Firemens' Galas that you can go to that are one big party. And of course the whole country of France gets ready to celebrate with fireworks. For me and my friends, we happened to be at the Eiffel Tower to watch this go down. Needless to say, it was an experience I won't forget.

We got there at 9am to find the perfect spot.

Good thing we did, because we soon got swarmed.

The neat part was hearing the French people sing their national anthem.

Night time starts to fall and it's about to begin.

And it was spectacular!

In America we traditionally celebrate our Independence Day with grilling out and spending time with our families, and then we also celebrate with fireworks. Our fireworks are nothing like what I witnessed here though. Not only were the fireworks at the Eiffel tower amazing in itself, but France also paid tribute to other nationalities which is something we don't do back home. It was nice to see fireworks that were choreographed to music that represented other groups of people and seeing the people of France take the time to recognize others on their Bastille Day is truly eye opening.