9/11 - 20 years on

My old passport used to have New York September 11th in it. I flew there a year to the day before.
Of course I went up one of the towers and stood on top. The curse began.
 
I’d just started my final year of university. Two of my best friends from school however were in NYC on holiday. No-one could get hold of them cos all the phone lines & internet were down/busy so once my lectures were over I just sat watching the TV in my room and panicking. Of course they were fine because it was quite early in the morning so they were still in their hotel. Turned out they’d been up the towers two days before.
 
Was living in the UK at the time, but on that day was on a short visit to Athens, to meet in person someone who would, later on, become my first boyfriend.
We were in a cafe when the first plane crashed, everyone went crazy and we couldn't understand what was going on so we've left and gone to my apartment to watch the news and by the time we arrived at the apartment the second plane had crashed too.
 
I was in a maths class during my second year at high school. I didn’t hear anything about it until I got home and my sister told me the CN Tower had been hit. :side-eye:
 
There was some initial confusion in WHSmith, and we thought Dane Bowers had been hit by a plane
 
If people thought it would happen in their cities too back in 2001, I wonder how big the impact would have been today when we’re even more connected (and especially to everything that happens in the US).
The fact that the internet was ancient and we were less connected added more fuel to the confusion cause we didn't know why this was happening and if there would be more.
By the time the second plane crashed we all knew it wasn't random but we relied on a single source of information, television and there were lots of assumptions everywhere.
 
Where’s that Mariah billboard GIF?
 
I walked home from school and my mum was watching the news, and I think I just started watching as the first tower came down. It was the first time I remember seeing my mum properly worried/upset at something as well.
 
It was super early in Auckland. Like 4-5 AM. My mom woke us up after we received a phone call from a cousin IN New York. I remember the radio wouldn't play any music or ads for a couple of days.

The conspiracy theories that have followed have become more and more believable over the years
 
Where’s that Mariah billboard GIF?
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I was in school, and they came over the loud speaker to tell us we were to remain inside for the rest of the day without explaining why. Then my dad told me what happened when I got home six or seven hours later. Not quite the urgency I would've liked from my parents :D
 
When I got home, I asked my mum what would happen next. She turned to me, with fear in her eyes and said "I don't know". I knew right then I was alone in the world. Orphaned if you will.
 
I was at work and first saw the news on the Popbitch website which oddly had better updates about it than the official news sites.

Someone jokingly posted that there were thousands of sheets of paper falling from the sky with the words “Victoria Beckham - Not Such an Innocent Girl, out next Monday” before the full GRAVITAS of the situation was realised.

Although, a few posters were wondering if the terrorist attack meant that fashion week would be cancelled. It takes ALL SORTS, I suppose.
 
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I was in a café on Stoke Newington Church Street being terribly sophisticated and cosmopolitan with a double espresso and heard about in on the news as the radio was on in the café. This was at the point when it was assumed to be an accident. After that, who knows? Probably had a fag, went home and got dollied up for the disco
 
Someone jokingly posted that there were thousands of sheets of paper falling from the sky with the words “Victoria Beckham - Not Such an Innocent Girl, our next Monday” before the full GRAVITAS of the situation was realised.

This is one of the perils of the internet age - the joke that ages very very fast. The first few pages of our Michael Jackson DEAD thread attest to that.
 
I was in year 5 at the beginning of a school day and at first I remember being upset that drama class was cancelled, then when I sobered up to the seriousness of the situation became deeply concerned that my mum's grooming shop would be next (a one-story boutique in Leslieville).
 
I was in school, and they came over the loud speaker to tell us we were to remain inside for the rest of the day without explaining why. Then my dad told me what happened when I got home six or seven hours later. Not quite the urgency I would've liked from my parents :D
I also wasn’t picked up from school for the rest of the day, but looking back maybe it was my mom trying to get her emotions in check before she picked me up (my dad was stuck in California)
 
I remember everything. I'd just finished school, my last lesson was double science and my teacher was telling me about after school rural studies which were starting a week later. I remember being picked up by my dad and going home, putting MTV on and the video they were playing, Five - Lets Dance. I remember saying to my sister it was odd Sean wasn't in the video and a banner appeared at the bottom of the screen telling us to switch over to a news channel.

When we did, the second plane had gone into the tower.
 
Oh, then I had to go to the post office, a couple of kids were outside yelling "we're at war! We're at war!". I went home and asked my dad if we were and told me not to be so ridiculous. We then had fish and chips as my mum was working late at First Direct and my dad didn't want to cook.
 
There was a “Long Island Medium” special on TLC tonight which featured Theresa Caputo (with mahvellus hayur) relaying messages from 9/11 victims to their families and it all seemed a bit déclassé.
 
My bizarre and vivid memory of it was watching the hundreds of planes circling around London that night, like a giant traffic jam in the sky

I lived in a top floor flat in streatham hill at the time and we had a massive view of south London for miles. The sky looked like an alien invasion. It was surreal.
 
I remember it vividly. I was in my flat in the City as I had gone to get changed after a class at the gym. The first plane looked like a horrible accident but the second crash meant it was something else.

My boyfriend came home shortly after and we ended up with 5 of our friends who worked in the City at ours during the afternoon when they got told to go home.
 
I was off work that week and my mum was moaning that Crossroads wasn’t on while she was doing her make up and the news had interrupted .
 
There was a “Long Island Medium” special on TLC tonight which featured Theresa Caputo (with mahvellus hayur) relaying messages from 9/11 victims to their families and it all seemed a bit déclassé.
Theresa Caputo, Long Island Medium? déclassé? I can't believe it.
 

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