I arrived in Paris early in the day on Friday with a tour group consisting of thirty or so students from my school in London. We had been handed a set itinerary earlier in the day at London St. Pancras Station before we boarded our train.

When we arrived in Paris we took a coach bus tour throughout the city center and were lucky enough to stop at the Eiffel Tower for a few minutes before heading to our hotel.

We left the hotel at 6:30pm and took the metro to the The Louvre Museum as a group and split up when we got there. After my friends and I walked through and saw everything on our list we met up with a few other students and decided to take the metro back to the area our hotel is in to find dinner. It is important to note here that we contemplated staying near The Louvre Museum or venturing out elsewhere for dinner.

At 10:11, I received a message from one of my friends who is currently studying abroad in Italy. "Shooting and casualties in central Paris, be safe friend." I read the message out loud and we all stopped eating and started searching for answers online.

There had been a shooting at a restaurant about two miles away from us.

I immediately texted my family members and close friends to let them know that I was safe. Soon after I started receiving messages via Facebook from other people from home. Current and former classmates, professors, acquaintances and extended family members all reached out to me.

We asked our waiter if he knew about what had happened and he turned the news on for us and began translating. At this point there were also reports of explosions near Stade de France, where a soccer game between France and Germany had been going on.

The walk from the restaurant to the hotel was only a couple of blocks and we walked quickly and kept our heads down. The sound of sirens was overwhelming. We all gathered in a friend's room to watch the news.

As the night went on, the amount of shootings and explosions increased. Over one hundred hostages were taken at the Bataclan Theatre where an American band had been performing and a hostage inside told police that people were being shot one by one. The city was put on lockdown and the country's borders were closed.

Despite the time differences between here and the United States my friends and I all managed to keep in constant contact with our families and friends before going to bed at 3am

Waking up this morning was difficult. Turning the news on to see that what happened was real and that the official number of casualties and people injured had increased drastically was painful. Not knowing what to expect for the day was exhausting.

The American Embassy advised that we stay inside for the time being and that's just what we did. It is now late Saturday night and we have yet to receive word on plans for tomorrow. We are due to take a train back to London late tomorrow evening.

I have now been abroad with the people in my tour group for about twelve weeks and the sense of community and friendship since the attacks has been astounding. We have all put our differences aside and come together. Those of us with international phone plans have been letting others borrow our phones to call family members. Some of us have opened our rooms to others in order to ensure that we are all feeling calm.

The hardest part of this situation for me is knowing that my family is at home worrying and that they will continue to worry after I return to school in the states since there have been threats against London as well.

Here in France people are a lot more open and the censorship laws are not very strict. I will never forget some of the pictures and videos I viewed online while trying to stay updated with the attacks. I will never forget the sound of the emergency response sirens here in Europe after last night.

I encourage everyone to reach out to their family and friends and let them know that they are loved. You never know when something tragic will happen.Good work! A few things: feel free to link to outside sources about jealousy or relationships (like Psychology Today or research, as it makes you look even more authoritative!)

Sub-headlines are lower case, BTW.

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