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Esmae turns the lights on the Eiffel Tower.

There are few things more magical for a young girl than spending a warm summer night in Paris in front of the lights of the Eiffel Tower. But Joel Redhead, 29, took things up a notch recently when he convinced his daughter, Esmae, that she turned on the lights all by herself.

The father and daughter duo were in Paris celebrating Esmae’s 8th birthday. Sadly, her mother couldn’t be there for health reasons.

Joel, from Yorkshire, England, told his daughter they were going to Liverpool for the weekend, but after spending a night in the city, that next morning, he surprised her with a trip to the City of Light.


"When we woke her up in the hotel the morning of our trip at 5 am and broke the news to her, she was completely overjoyed, but the excitement didn’t end there,” he told The Yorkshire Post.

@redheadresidence

She asked who made it sparkle so Daddy gave her the job ✨🇫🇷 #eiffeltower #paris #wholesome #tourist #emotionalmoments #loveyou #fypシ

Joel packed a light switch for the trip, and when they arrived at the Eiffel Tower, he told his daughter that she was responsible for turning the lights on that night. He handed her the switch, and she turned her back to the tower. When the lights came on, she flipped the switch, turned around and countless sparkling lights illuminated the city.

Later, the dad told his daughter that the switch wasn’t connected to the tower, but she loved the experience anyway.

"She said she felt magical, and though now she knows that daddy set this up to give her a memory of a lifetime and how the lights really worked, she finds it hilarious that we pranked the people around us who believed she turned them on,” he said.

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Age is just a number. Ask this remarkable, record-setting 105-year-old cyclist.

'I'm doing it to prove that at 105 years old, you can still ride a bike.'

Although he loved cycling, Robert Marchand stopped participating in the sport when he was just 22 years old.

His coach told him that, because of his small stature, Marchand would never become a cycling champion, CNN reported. So, Marchand figured, what's the point?

Marchand, who was born in France in 1911, went on to do other exciting things with his life after locking his bike away all those years ago. But his passion for cycling never truly subsided.


Now — more than eight decades after he first decided to quit — Marchand is proving his old coach dead wrong.

Photo by Philippe Lopez/AFP/Getty Images.

On Jan. 4, 2017, Marchand set a new cycling record at the age of 105. And the world is giving him a much-deserved standing ovation for it.

Photo by Philippe Lopez/AFP/Getty Images.

In one hour, Marchand pedaled 14 miles at the Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines velodrome cycling competition near Paris.

It's a new distance record for the 105-and-up category — a pool created specially for Marchand, according to the Associated Press.

Photo by Philippe Lopez/AFP/Getty Images.

"I didn't see the sign for the last 10 minutes, otherwise I could have gone faster," the smiley record-setter told BFMTV.

Photo by Philippe Lopez/AFP/Getty Images.

Still, he explained, he's "not here to break any record."

"I'm doing it to prove that at 105 years old, you can still ride a bike."

Photo by Philippe Lopez/AFP/Getty Images.

Amazingly, it wasn't even until age 75 that Marchand decided to get back into the sport, CNN reported.

It's not as if he'd been lying low all those years, though. Throughout his adult life, the French veteran — who's lived through both world wars — has worked as a firefighter, a gardener, a lumberjack in Canada, and a truck driver in Venezuela, just to name a few.

After getting back into cycling as a senior, Marchand has completed impressive cross-country trips, like Bordeaux to Paris and Paris to Moscow, according to ESPN.

Photo by Philippe Lopez/AFP/Getty Images.

"He never pushed his limits, goes to bed at 9 p.m. and wakes up at 6 a.m.," Gerard Mistler, Marchand's friend and coach, told AP. "There's no other secret."

Life's about so much more than riding bikes and setting records, and no one understands that better than Marchand.

The 105-year-old — who will turn 106 in November 2017 — is going strong thanks to his love of laughter, looking at the glass half-full, and a great group of friends who keep him young.

Photo by Philippe Lopez/AFP/Getty Images.

He's living proof that age really is just a number.

Photo by Philippe Lopez/AFP/Getty Images.

"Setting goals for himself is part of his personality," Coach Mistler said. "If he tells me he wants to improve his record, I'll be game. Robert is a great example for all of us."

Whether you want to graduate from college at 99 or deadlift 225 pounds at the gym at 78, Marchand's cycling record is yet another great reminder that none of us is too old to dust off an old bike and hop on for a brand new adventure.

In 2008, couples with a flair for the romantic started sojourning to the Pont des Arts bridge in Paris to leave symbols of their everlasting love.

Tourists flocked to the popular pedestrian bridge to sign their initials on a padlock, lock it to the railing, and throw the key in the Seine river.

A couple takes picture at the Pont des Arts. Photo by Patrick Kovarik/AFP/Getty Images.


From the outset, it seemed like an adorable tradition. Surely, a bridge in the world's most romantic city can handle a few mementos, right? Well, not quite. The Pont des Arts was not built to handle the additional 45 to 65 tons (yes, tons!) of padlocks added by visitors. In 2014, the bridge was evacuated after part of the railing collapsed.

Love is strong. Stone and iron can only take so much.

Authorities tried to discourage the love locks practice, even suggesting selfies instead, but tourists (and zealous padlock salespeople near the bridge) weren't swayed.

A woman looks at padlocks hanging on the Pont des Arts. Photo by Charly Triballeau/AFP/Getty Images.

So in 2015, the city completely remove the railings (locks and all) and replaced them with sheets of plexiglass.

Cranes were required to get the job done, as lifting more than 1 million padlocks is no easy feat.

A worker removes "love locks" attached on the railings of the Pont des Arts. Photo by Stephane De Sakutin/AFP/Getty Images.

The result? No more heavy locks. No more keys in the Seine (this was especially important to Paris's mayor, Anne Hidalgo who pledged to clean up the polluted waterway). And a stronger, safer bridge for all.

A couple watches seagulls flying over the new "lock-free" Pont des Arts. Photo by Patrick Kovarik/AFP/Getty Images.

Since the new look more than a year ago, most lovebirds assumed their locks were discarded. But Paris being Paris, they found a way for all that love to live on.

Beginning early next year, 10 tons of the locks, which were removed from the bridge in 2015, will be sold to raise money for groups and organizations supporting refugees in the Paris metro area.

“Members of the public can buy five or 10 locks, or even clusters of them, all at an affordable price," Bruno Julliard, first deputy mayor of Paris told reporters at a press event.

Julliard expects to raise just over $107,000 (100,000 euros) for local groups supporting refuges in the region, though details are scarce on which organizations will receive the money or how much individual locks will cost.

The remaining locks will be melted down and sold as scrap metal.

Love padlocks attached on the railings of the Pont des Arts. Photo by Stephane De Sakutin/AFP/Getty Images.

This has the potential to be a great solution to a popular problem.

The Pont des Arts isn't the only bridge with a love lock problem, and this could be a viable solution for public spaces around the world.

Couples have the opportunity to potentially buy their lock back or to own a little piece of history. A popular bridge stays clean and safe. And the project supports thousands of refugees living in and around the city. It's forward thinking, eco-friendly, and supports people in need.

What's not to love?

When Five by Five, an "innovation agency," launched their summer fellowship program, a lot of qualified people applied.

The program, running from July 18-29 in Paris, promises 20 of the best and brightest minds "2 weeks of funding, tools, space and mentorship to start prototyping the change they want to see," in the city of Paris.


Photo via iStock.

As expected, a huge pool of applications came in from brilliant Ph.D.s, accomplished urban developers, data scientists, and specialists.

What they didn't expect was an application from a 10-year-old girl named Eva.

Eva's application to the prestigious program involved her pitch to build a robot that would make the streets of Paris "happy again" because, right now, she wrote, "the streets of Paris are sad."

A Thymio robot, which Eva based her design around. Image via thymio.org.

In her application, Eva wrote that, despite learning how to code, she had trouble making her robot work and wanted to join the fellowship to get help.

In the competitive world of science and tech — and the even more competitive world of applying for a prestigious fellowship in the field of science and tech — asking for help can be a rare thing.

Asking for help is something we all need to do, and Eva's application is notable for that reason in particular.

“There is a tendency to act as if [asking for help] is a deficiency,” Garret Keizer, author of "Help: The Original Human Dilemma" told The New York Times. “That is exacerbated if a business environment is highly competitive within as well as without. There is an understandable fear that if you let your guard down, you’ll get hurt, or that this information you don’t know how to do will be used against you.”

Image via iStock.

Whatever your goals are — writing a book, building a robot, or even just building some Ikea furniture — it's both brave and beneficial to ask for the help you need.

Kat Borlongan, a founding partner at Five by Five, was so inspired by Eva's application that she not only accepted her into the program, she published her acceptance letter publicly on Facebook.

(All emphasis mine.)

"Dear Eva, The answer is yes. You have been selected as one of Paris’ first-ever Summer Innovation Fellows among an impressive pool of candidates from all across the world: accomplished urban designers, data scientists and hardware specialists. I love your project and agree that more should be done — through robotics or otherwise — to improve Paris’ streets and make them smile again."

Borlongan goes on to describe what she thought was the most inspiring part of Eva's application — the simple ask for help:

"You’ve openly told us that you had trouble making the robot work on your own and needed help. That was a brave thing to admit, and ultimately what convinced us to take on your project. Humility and the willingness to learn in order to go beyond our current limitations are at the heart and soul of innovation.

It is my hope that your work on robotics will encourage more young girls all over the world — not just to code, but to be as brave as you, in asking for help and actively looking for different ways to learn and grow."

It's true, asking for help can be difficult, and at 10 years old, Eva is already truly inspiring.

Not just because she knows how to program robots (and wants to get even better at it) and not just because she wants to use that knowledge to make people smile ... but because she knows that no one succeeds on their own and asking for help isn't a sign of weakness.

Maybe one day you'll even get help from a robot! Photo by Oli Scarff/Getty Images.

So, congratulations, Eva. You're already making us smile, and you didn't even need a robot to do it.