Paris by night

My host, Adam, is renting a flat in Rue Lamarck. Many of the shops have blinds pulled down to the floor and a notice in the window declaring that they're fermé pour août; bonnes vacances! I arrive at the building with two bags of luggage totalling my own body weight but naturally the lift is broken. On the other hand, the six flights of spiralling, wooden stairs have never been out of order.

We eat dinner on the balcony. Looking uphill, there is the entrance to Lamarck – Coullaincourt metro station, and the upper tips of the Sacré-Cœur, just visible over the chambres de bonne. As smooth as sugar almonds, and so brilliantly illuminated at night, the domes of the basilica look superimposed on the skyline. Looking downhill, I see La Défense, the financial district. It is as modern and glistening as Canary Wharf, but being in the west of the city, with panoramic sunsets, the office workers know when it's time to go home.

We caught happy hour at a bar in Rue Saint André des Arts. Judging by the prices, the promotion referred to the happiness of the barman and not his customers. I met three of Adam's classmates from his summer course at the Sorbonne. Any friend of Adam's is sure to be kind-hearted and intelligent and this was the case. One of them had taken a short course in Arabic at SOAS a few years ago: confirmation that Adam only associates himself with decent people.