I was out to dinner in Paris when the attacks happened

Junior International Economics major Muriel Van de Bilt was having dinner with friends on the south side of Paris when she first heard news of the terrorist attacks in the city on Friday.

The 20-year-old, studying at Sciences Po, spoke with The Tab Georgetown about her experience in Paris that night, and the uncertainty that has continued since the weekend.

Our Georgetown coordinator started calling all of us and asking where were we, and asking us to go home, because that was the time that they started to get the first reports on the shootings.

I knew because of the group text that everyone from Georgetown was fine and then I reached out to a couple of my other friends. I WhatsApped my parents and best friends in Brazil: “Hi. There has been some terrorist actions in Paris. I’m OK, I’m out to dinner, I’m not close to where it is happening, so I’m going home and do not worry, I’m going to message you when I’m home.”

Because I live in South Paris, I could only hear the sirens and the ambulances going by, more than you would hear on a daily basis. Driving around the city [to home] was super empty.

The second that I was home, physically at home, I was a lot more calm. At that point, we knew something was happening but we didn’t know if it was over or not. I sat down on the couch with my host mom and watched the news until 2 am to understand what was going on.

[While] I’m not an example of “it could have been me,” I’ve seen what has happened through my host family.

My host mom – two of her co-workers passed away. She’s a social assistant at a high school here in Paris, and they had to do a lot of talks with the children at the school because they lost someone.

Over the weekend, we were advised by the Georgetown coordinator, my homestay, in general, to not leave the house.

So the first time I went outside after what happened on Friday was this morning to go to class. [The city has] been very much of a lockdown – but it wasn’t imposed. But I literally only went to class because I had to go to class, and we had a suspicious package today at school, and were evacuated.

There’s been a little more silence than usual, but shops were open, classes were held. So it’s starting to go back to real life again.

I think it’s impossible to be completely removed from it, we are living here. It’s what we talk about when I’m at dinner with my host family, and it’s what we talk about it in class.

You start wondering, how is it going to be next Friday? How is it going to be over the weekend?

I try not to be scared because otherwise I’m going to finish out my time studying abroad just trapped being scared over and over again.

It obviously makes you uneasy – you can obviously tell the whole city is uneasy.

People say Paris is resilient. And it’s true.