Earlier in the week I’d been in London, Oxford, Dublin and Brussels for a series of meetings and speaking commitments. It was a packed schedule. Paris had been booked for a weekend of croissants, impressionists and aperitifs. The Eurostar pulled in from London just after 6.30pm. I know high speed rail is not economical in Australia, but catching a train from St Pancras to Gare du Nord in just over two hours does make you dream of a post-airline world.

My old friend, Jason, arrived a few hours later. His focus for the weekend was drinking Chateau something-or-others. I took inspiration from an episode of Absolutely Fabulous. According to Edina Monsoon in Paris you go to ‘beautiful Shops with beautiful things… stop for a little drink, buy some more beautiful things, go to the Eiffel Tower and get our tits out’; metaphorically speaking, of course.

It was our plan to eat in Le Marais, but I wanted to go to L’Entrecote in homage to the restaurant that has since been locally reproduced in my Melbourne neighbourhood. Fate sometimes has a funny way of intervening. In our case the pursuit of filet de boeuf, salade, pomme frites and champagne gave us a ‘choose your own adventure’ novel moment. There were two L’Entrecote nearby. One was almost directly toward the Bataclan Theatre. The other was in a slightly different direction. Both were the same distance. For no particular reason we chose the latter.

L’Entrecote was busy and neither of us were in the waiting mood. We went to the closest nondescript Bistro that didn’t advertise an English menu: which is always a bad sign. We were tucking into our steaks and a bottle of Crozes Hermitage when the first phone call came through. Jason’s partner, Charles, called to tell us of the unfolding terrorist attack. Then text messages started coming through. A message from our Attorney-General popped up ‘You’re not in Paris yet’. I sent a reassuring answer that all was well.

Shortly after we heard that there were attacks across multiple sites and the number of hostages at the Bataclan had risen from 20 to around 100. When we started to map out the additional attacks they were increasingly headed in our direction. It’s difficult to see a situation for what it is when you’re in the middle of it. When Australia’s chief law officer messaged again that there’s ‘another attack in Les Halles, I’d get back to your hotel if I were you’, it’s probably best to heed their call. The extent of the attacks and the use of automatic weapons and grenades meant you couldn’t know whether it may have been visited upon you. At this point there’d been six attacks, but you can’t exactly call the terrorists and ask if ‘you’re done yet?’

It was only later in the evening that we observed that we were the last in the restaurant on what should have been a bustling night trade. Bars and restaurants along some of Paris’ busiest streets were closing on the direction of police. It’s hard to know how you’d respond in such a situation until you’ve experienced it. Back at our hotel we were both fatalist and accepted that if it was our time to go then it should be after a prayer for ‘safety, security and freedom’ over a charged glass of champagne.

The next morning we were weary and confused. It’s these occasions that turn you to ethereal reassurance, but Notre Dame was closed and didn’t provide a mass. Instead we went for the more traditional sustenance in a popular cafe district where we would ordinarily have fought for a table. We walked off breakfast by sauntering the streets to the 11th district where we were unexpectedly greeted by an ABC television crew wanting our version of events. Back home my fiancé, Ryan, received a constant stream of worried phone calls from friends and family as they watched my interviews.

We headed down the Seine. My pilgrimage to the Musee d’Orsay was over as every site was shut except the now empty museum of the city itself. We got to walk Paris without the risk of bumping into anyone except small packs of police officers with machine guns and the occasional blaring siren from a police car. Even in the 8th district it was hard to find a high maintenance well-to-do French woman using cold weather to justify parading her furs, though we did spot one.

The night before we were supposed to have a night cap with an Australian friend, Roland, but the state of emergency got in the way. It’s times like this that seeing familiar friends becomes reassuring. Over a grazing lunch your mind is refocused back to conversation of normal life: friends, family and suburbs whose names bring back memories of Australia’s all-too-often average retail experience; at least compared to the the hautes objets of Paris.

On Sunday’s departure Jason and I gave each other a hug as he said it was ‘good to see you old boy’. He was right. As the days have gone on the full reality of the events that surrounded us became clearer, and more daunting of what could have been. Even for tough nuts like us these experiences need to be shouldered.

After Paris I spoke at a G20 meeting in Istanbul on the importance of religious freedom. The focus was slightly different than originally intended. Now I’m on my way to speak at a Council of Europe conference in Strasbourg. The topic: preserving civil liberties in an age of national security threats. How timely.