This past weekend marked two years of us living in France. Today marked the second time we assembled outside of our respective workplaces with our colleagues to honor and commemorate victims of hideous terrorist attacks that have shaken this nation. However, at the moments like this, it is not hard to feel being an outsider. Even if there were victims of a number of nationalities, first and foremost, it was a French tragedy. We felt the same in the US when the nine-eleven happened; local people did not want to share their thoughts with us.

One silent minute on Domaine Universitaire today at noon, the campus of three universities: Université Joseph Fourier, Université Pierre-Mendès-France, and Université Stendhal, which will become one Université Grenoble Alpes in January 2016.

Even if not coming close to the accounts of the survivors’ of Friday’s attacks, we find it a bit unnerving that we were in Paris three weeks ago, living and dining in the same area, on exactly the same streets, that the attacks occurred. We did notice the presence of gendarms on our street then, though. They were not patrolling, but staying at one particular place.

We signed this piece of art at the Place de la Republique on our first trip to Paris in June 2014.