Last night I was thinking about Paris, my too-brief time there, trying to see what I could remember of being 23 and alone in that city. The memories are like snapshots, like dreams that don’t fit together. So I dug out a journal from my two-dozen-volume box of journals in my closet, to see what I wrote down that day.

There were no cellphones then, at least not for me or anyone I knew. So, after debarking the TGV from London, I sat in the Gare du Nord, parked astride my extra-large backpack, waiting for a total stranger, a Frenchman, a friend of a friend, to find me. After a couple hours, he did.

It was dark when we left the station, so I could not see the splendid architecture around me. The man, Ludo, did not speak English. My French was quite broken. But somehow we were able to get me fed, a cold sandwich from a street cart, all I could afford. Ludo tried to be polite, I think. He pointed at a huge dark building we passed: “La Sorbonne”, then looked at me to see if I knew what that was.

I followed him through increasingly narrowed streets until we reached a door, and then a steep, twisting staircase, to a tiny flat full of people. I don’t remember much from this night, except exhaustion and cigarette smoke and trying to sleep in a room filled with drunk French people who never went to bed, and hoping none of them would get inappropriate with me. Before dawn, Ludo woke me and showed me that I had to set my clock ahead an hour — it was mid-March. Then they all passed out.

Gray light came into the flat behind the heavy blankets thrown across the windows. I knew that now I could go, despite my fatigue. I had another train to catch. I gathered myself and my things, and I think, I hope, that I said “Merci” to Ludo on my way out the door, not that he would have heard me. I descended into the street. The sun was shining, just risen, and Paris was strangely quiet.

Except for the old lady who immediately asked me for a cigarette. “Pas fumée,” I muttered, and started to walk, following a tiny folded Metro map to the underground station. There was a cool spring breeze blowing, sending little whirlwinds of trash across the sidewalk. The city still looked beautiful, especially when so still and empty. I wish I had had more time to be there, one more day, instead of rushing to catch a train south to the countryside.

Which I did, somehow, and soon was rolling away from Paris, pointed toward the Alps.