"Don't go to Paris please" was the first message I read on my phone the morning of Saturday November 14, the day after the deadly Paris attack. I was with my mom in Ireland for the weekend because she was visiting from the States and we had gone to bed early the night before, exhausted from traveling.
I was unaware of what had occurred the previous night until I checked the news that morning. There were multiple people from both my program and other programs at my University who were in Paris for the weekend and my thoughts immediately went to them. I went into a panic. The friends who sat beside me in class, who were in my group projects, and so many the faces of my Spanish study abroad student family were in Paris for the weekend.
Were they okay? I had no idea.
Thankfully, Facebook being the incredible tool that it is, quickly allowed me to see that all of the friends that I knew who were in Paris were safe. Many had been on the Metro or only a few blocks away from the scenes when the attacks occurred, but all were alive and well.
And that was all that mattered at that moment.
What occurred in Paris on the 13th of November shook the world. It was felt in every corner of every country, in every University, and in the homes of those who lost a loved one that day. When Paris hurt, we all felt the pain.
As a study abroad student, this experience was very different for me than it would have been if I were back home in the States. Instead of the attack being just a breaking headline on the news, it was a real and terrifying realization that I knew and I loved faces that were in the city.
It was a tangible fear; and that is something I can never forget.
My University in Bilbao held an organized moment of silence for the victims of the Paris attacks in the middle of the day on Monday. The Spanish students felt the sting from Friday's events just as much as those in the States. A moment of silence in Spain is something that I had not experienced, a moment of silence in another country with another people, but we shared the same hurt and we mourned together.
Something I have learned while abroad is that although we may all come from different countries, speak different languages, and practice different customs, we are all humans and we are all in this life together. We are all in the same boat, and when a wave crash against us, we all feel the shutter.
So as we all honor the blue, the red, and the white of the French flag, let us remember that those colors represent much more than just the country of France. After these attacks, these colors are the colors that the world is wearing to show that we are a united people.
