I Zip-Lined Off The Eiffel Tower — This Is What It Was Actually Like

“I looked around and could see the glittery Seine winding through the city and Sacre Couer perched atop a hill in the distance.”

In 1912, inventor Franz Reichelt lost his life while testing a hand-made parachute off the first floor of the Eiffel Tower. It wasn't the impact that killed him — by many accounts, he died of fright before actually hitting the ground.

With my feet curled over the ledge of the Eiffel Tower, looking down on all the ant-sized people gathered below, I was pretty sure the same thing was going to happen to me. How did I get here? As part of a marketing campaign for the French Open, Perrier invited me and 699 others to zip-line off the second floor of the Eiffel Tower. "There was an athlete who did something from the first floor, but this is the first time there is a zip-line from the second floor," Sarah Soltane, events manager for Nestlé Waters, told me. "I don't think it will happen again."

The idea behind the Smash Perrier installation is that when you plummet 375 feet, you accelerate to 55 mph, which is the speed at which a tennis ball crosses the net. That all sounds really cool — until you're about to do it yourself and your hands are sweating so much you can barely grip the bars.

"Assurez-vous de déplacer votre tête sur le côté à la fin de la course," the instructor shouted, three minutes before I was about to hurl my body off the tower. "Sinon, vous frapperez votre visage."

I frantically looked around at the rest of the people in my group, who were all nodding their heads in understanding. This is a good time to mention that I don't speak any French — I can barely ask "Est-ce que vous pouvez m'aider?" (Which means, Can you help me? a phrase I was desperately trying to recall from Duo-Lingo as I stood there shaking.)