“Wanna see the Louvre?” I texted to a Canadian friend in Ottawa around 9 p.m.

She called me on Whatsapp a few minutes later. I wasn’t going to go far, I just wanted to take a few pictures of the glass pyramids at dusk.

We chatted for a little while and I ended up crossing the Seine on the Pont du Carrousel.

By the time we hung up I realized I wasn’t so tired after all—not tired enough to go back to the apartment, anyway. It was Friday night, everybody seemed to be out enjoying the nice weather and I should be having fun too.

So I followed the left bank of the Seine with big river boats full of people partying passing by. I walked past food trucks, cafés, restaurants, skaters and I sat down to enjoy a couple of bands playing live. It was getting dark and crowded, loud and rowdy, fun and exciting. The outdoor face mask rule had been suddenly lifted ahead of schedule last Thursday and it felt like a regular 2019 Friday night in France.

I crossed the river back to the right bank at Pont Alexandre III. Streets were quiet around the Petit Palais but as soon as I got to the Champs-Élysées, I noticed Paris’ posh district was partying too, just differently—plenty of fancy cars with foreign plates speeding by were the first clue.

As usual, it took me a good five minutes to figure out how to cross properly at Place de la Concorde—don’t laugh, it’s… fucked up—and out of curiosity, I took Rue Saint-Honoré, home to French elegance and upscale shopping if you have a few thousands euros to spare for a pair of socks. I watched tourists and locals getting off in front of Paris luxury hotels, most of them dressed in “party haute couture fashion”, i.e. white silk dress, red-lacquered soles Louboutin shoes and tiny fancy handbags. A different world just meters from left bank’s street parties…

Then I walked back to the apartment alone, where I edited my pictures, worked a bit and wolfed down a Vietnamese Banh Mi noddle bowl.

Pretty good Friday night by my standards.