A couple on honeymoon in Paris captured 17 incredible images after the attacks.
Newlywed couple Ryan Gielen and Katy Wright-Mead had just arrived in Paris on their honeymoon when the attacks began.
An impromptu memorial for the victims. All photos by Ryan Gielen/Honeymoon in Paris, used with permission.
Disappointed with some of the coverage of the aftermath of the shootings, Gielen, a filmmaker who runs a production company back in the United States, decided to put his camera to use.
"I think it's really easy, cliche, and not entirely true that the city was in a state of shock," Gielen told Upworthy of the media coverage.
What struck the couple the most in the days following the attacks was the abundance — and richness — of conversation taking place.
"There was pain and anguish and sadness and tears, and there were memorials popping up," Gielen said. "People came to grieve, but it seemed to both of us that just as many people were there to engage with one another."
The couple decided to document their trip on their Facebook page, "Honeymoon in Paris," which contains dozens of incredible still frames from Gielen's footage. The frank, intimate images they captured present a city in one of its rawest moments — persevering — through the eyes of two people experiencing it for the very first time.
1. Deborah, the manager of a bistro near the site of the shootings, talks about why she felt she had to reopen the very next day.
"At first I didn't know if I was allowed to open. ... I said, 'I'm going to open, so people will be able to talk, or if they need toilets or something like that," she told the couple in a conversation they later recounted on Facebook.
"I will be open... You have to live... I won't let them scare me."
2. A soccer fan showing the press his ticket from the previous night's game at the Stade de France, where an attack was narrowly thwarted.
"He sought out cameras and then displayed the ticket for as long as they needed. Once the cameras moved on, he went looking for the next," Gielen wrote on Facebook.
3. A tourist notices a series of blood stains on the street near Le Bataclan music venue.
89 people were killed during a standoff at Le Bataclan, the deadliest part of the attacks.
4. A young man placing tributes to the victims on the Monument à la République.
"He circled the ledge of the monument for nearly two hours, placing mourners' flowers, and taping letters, posters and flags, and then just walked off," Gielen wrote.
5. The monument at night, transformed into an impromptu memorial.
"I moved to New York City exactly a month after 9/11, so the atmosphere to me feels familiar in that way," Wright-Mead said. "It feels like a universal moment."
6. A group of total strangers gathers to debate politics, religion, and violence — in the middle of the plaza.
The night after the attacks, the couple encountered a number of spontaneous "salons" — lively arguments over the meaning and significance of the attacks, often between people who had just met.
"It's something really extraordinary that I've never seen before," Gielen said.
7. A Muslim man "playfully kisses a man he was arguing with."
Following the kiss, the duo continued arguing for almost an hour, according to the couple.
"I think it was sort of electric with conversation — intellectual conversation, and people were really alert, but sort of communicative, connected to each other," Wright-Mead said of their experience the weekend following the attacks. "Everyone we talked to was open and willing to talk, and sort of debate. But yeah, I'd say it was high energy, for sure."
8. Another young Muslim man, who spent the evening passionately arguing that the terrorists don't represent Islam.
"I asked, 'Do you feel responsible for explaining Islam, or apologizing for Islam to your people? Is that what you're doing here?'" Gielen said. "And his response was, 'No, I came to town to buy a gift for my girlfriend for her birthday, but in passing by and seeing the debates that were happening, I felt a responsibility to present myself as what Islam really is."
9. Laila, a young Muslim woman, vents her frustration at having to constantly justify her religion.
"French people say, 'Why don't you come to the street with us [to mourn], to come debate with us, to say you are with us...'" she told the couple, "But we don't have to justify or act. ... Of course we are with the French people, we are French. We don't need to say 'Hello, I'm Muslim, I'm here!'"
10. A mourner pushes a camera away.
The media attention was thick, according to the couple, but some of those paying tribute just wanted to be left alone.
11. A man recalls narrowly escaping the scene of the attacks only a few hours before they began.
According to Gielen and Wright-Mead, Theo and his girlfriend had been eating at La Belle Équipe on rue de Charonne, near Le Bataclan, on the night of the attacks.
"We were there for a late lunch ... we left at 6 or 7," he told the couple. "At 9:30, the guys arrive with Kalashnikovs and kill 19 people. ... We feel lucky right now, I think."
12. A bomb scare forced Gielen to take shelter in a building with dozens of others.
Gielen was observing the salons in the Place de la République when rumors of yet another bomb started flying.
"It felt like all 1,500-2,000 people turned and sprinted at us, yelling, 'Bomb! Bomb! Bomb!'" Gielen said. "So the people I was interviewing, myself, we just turned and ran."
The threat later turned out to be a false alarm.
13. A family looking for their daughter after the false alarm.
"Caroline? Caroline?" Gielen recalls hearing them say.
14. Back in the Place de la République, 15 minutes after the bomb scare.
According the couple, the discussions, arguments, and conversations continued as if nothing had happened.
"Nobody's hiding," Wright-Mead said.
15. A young man defies the police in order to hang a French flag on the monument in the Place.
"The crowd chanted 'Bravo! Bravo!' and applauded him. When he came down he was hugged by strangers until the police reached him," the couple wrote on Facebook.
16. Police confronting the young man — as the crowd protests.
"Seeing he was a French student, [they] gave him a polite but firm 'no more climbing' and let him go," Gielen wrote. "The crowd, who showed restraint in equal measure to the police, chanted 'Merci! Merci! Bravo!' applauding the police discretion and parted to let them return to their posts around the Place. It was an extraordinary display of community and communication."
17. A young woman in a cafe, who refuses to be terrorized.
Sophie, who the couple met at Attitude Cafe, talked about resilience in the face of uncertainty.
"We are sitting here, and yes we are afraid another car can come, and kill us," she told the couple, in a conversation they recalled on Facebook.
"But come on — have guts."
A Generation Jones teenager poses in her room.Image via Wikmedia Commons
An office kitchen.via 
An angry man eating spaghetti.via 
An Irish woman went to the doctor for a routine eye exam. She left with bright neon green eyes.
It's not easy seeing green.
Did she get superpowers?
Going to the eye doctor can be a hassle and a pain. It's not just the routine issues and inconveniences that come along when making a doctor appointment, but sometimes the various devices being used to check your eyes' health feel invasive and uncomfortable. But at least at the end of the appointment, most of us don't look like we're turning into The Incredible Hulk. That wasn't the case for one Irish woman.
Photographer Margerita B. Wargola was just going in for a routine eye exam at the hospital but ended up leaving with her eyes a shocking, bright neon green.
At the doctor's office, the nurse practitioner was prepping Wargola for a test with a machine that Wargola had experienced before. Before the test started, Wargola presumed the nurse had dropped some saline into her eyes, as they were feeling dry. After she blinked, everything went yellow.
Wargola and the nurse initially panicked. Neither knew what was going on as Wargola suddenly had yellow vision and radioactive-looking green eyes. After the initial shock, both realized the issue: the nurse forgot to ask Wargola to remove her contact lenses before putting contrast drops in her eyes for the exam. Wargola and the nurse quickly removed the lenses from her eyes and washed them thoroughly with saline. Fortunately, Wargola's eyes were unharmed. Unfortunately, her contacts were permanently stained and she didn't bring a spare pair.
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Since she has poor vision, Wargola was forced to drive herself home after the eye exam wearing the neon-green contact lenses that make her look like a member of the Green Lantern Corps. She couldn't help but laugh at her predicament and recorded a video explaining it all on social media. Since then, her video has sparked a couple Reddit threads and collected a bunch of comments on Instagram:
“But the REAL question is: do you now have X-Ray vision?”
“You can just say you're a superhero.”
“I would make a few stops on the way home just to freak some people out!”
“I would have lived it up! Grab a coffee, do grocery shopping, walk around a shopping center.”
“This one would pair well with that girl who ate something with turmeric with her invisalign on and walked around Paris smiling at people with seemingly BRIGHT YELLOW TEETH.”
“I would save those for fancy special occasions! WOW!”
“Every time I'd stop I'd turn slowly and stare at the person in the car next to me.”
“Keep them. Tell people what to do. They’ll do your bidding.”
In a follow-up Instagram video, Wargola showed her followers that she was safe at home with normal eyes, showing that the damaged contact lenses were so stained that they turned the saline solution in her contacts case into a bright Gatorade yellow. She wasn't mad at the nurse and, in fact, plans on keeping the lenses to wear on St. Patrick's Day or some other special occasion.
While no harm was done and a good laugh was had, it's still best for doctors, nurses, and patients alike to double-check and ask or tell if contact lenses are being worn before each eye test. If not, there might be more than ultra-green eyes to worry about.