This year, I’m living on Rue de la Fontaine au Roi. The terrace of the Casa Nostra pizzeria on this street was targeted during the Paris terrorist attacks on Friday night, where five of the current death toll of 129 died. It’s eerily silent and empty; people are still going out and doing their shopping, but they daren’t stay out long.

I am unharmed, and so this account in no way at all compares to those of people affected. Everyone’s thoughts are with the victims and their friends and families. My supervisor emailed from Cambridge to encourage his students to share their experiences, because it’s important that people know about these stories and what happens when terror strikes, so they can better prepare themselves.

When you arrive at the destination where you will be spending your year abroad, the Year Abroad Office asks you to fill in a risk assessment form. Naïvely, I didn’t bother filling mine in. A terrorist attack isn’t really something you think will actually happen.

Before the terror began, my night started out as a romantic date. It all changed when I got a text from my neighbour. “There are gunshots outside the building,” she said. “Some people have died. Be careful if you’re coming back home soon.”

My boyfriend thought it best to stay in the restaurant to wait and see how the situation developed, but I was feeling too anxious to sit there constantly refreshing Twitter, so we decided to leave and make our way home.

We considered the metro but it seemed too dangerous, so we decided to take a taxi. However, they all seemed to be taken. Rather than hang about on the streets, we found another restaurant, avoiding the ones full of people since these had been the targets earlier on.

By this time, the metro had been evacuated. Around midnight, the restaurant owner gently asked us to leave, so a friend from just outside Paris tried to drive in to pick us up, but traffic into the city had been stopped. I posted a status on Facebook asking if anyone could take us in and my college mum contacted her friends who live five minutes away near Notre Dame. We were planning to stay the night as we had heard that my street had been sealed off after the shootings and we couldn’t go back yet.

The walk to their apartment wasn’t pleasant, but I’m glad that I was with a Parisian who knows the streets well, as I’m terrible at directions at the best of times, and my phone had died. Initially we thought sticking to main open boulevards would be sensible, but then considered that the shootings had been in streets filled with passers-by. We took to the secluded and shadowed riverside, usually my favourite thing to do in Paris.

But stopped cars with blaring headlights and people lurking in the shadows left us profoundly uneasy. We turned back to the main streets. I was in heels but preferred to run, though made a point of staying calm. We only ran when no cars went past in case the drivers were involved and had guns, as we were worried running might show panic and make us targets.

Everyone was driving erratically, either in fright or, more likely, flight; we knew that not all the suspects had been caught. Some cars would drive really fast and then suddenly stop in strange places. We trusted no one, and even the slightest noise from people taking the bins out made us jump. We stayed with my college mum’s friends until 3am, then took a taxi home.

It was only in the taxi that we realised how frighteningly close the attacks had been to where I live. We drove past two sites with red tape and saw forensics teams in white suits. ISIS has said it’s not over, so obviously we’re scared to leave. The element of chance is awful, knowing that it could happen to anyone, and anywhere. We had tried to book a restaurant at 17 Avenue Parmentiers for 9pm, for instance, twenty minutes before the shootings on the next street, Boulevard Voltaire. However, the reservation was declined as they were already full. From there we would have heard the gunshots.

My thoughts are with the victims involved, their families and friends during this sad time, and victims of terrorism not only in France, but everywhere.