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[dmb]

I've been racking my brain. I can't remember Am I alone?
I do remember where I was when Lady Di died/was killed though.

[JosephP]

I happened to be on an airplane when the planes smashed into the Pentagon and the World Trade Center. I was flying from Boise, Idaho to Seattle to connect with a Hawaiian airlines flight to Honolulu. I remember the flight attendent with a rather dazed look on her face walking the center aisle carefully scrutinizing the passengers. At the time we passengers had no idea what was transpiring on the other side of the continent. On arrival at Sea-Tac when I was walking up the pier to go get checked in to my connecting flight I overheard two fellas saying that all flights were probably going to be canceled. It was a gorgeous day so I couldn't fathom why any flights would be canceled. I briefly glanced at a TV monitor in a bar at the top of the pier and saw a big building burning. "Hmmm...that's not a good thing" I remember thinking. I still didn't know the situation. When I reached the Hawaiian Airlines counter it was totally devoided of staff and a hand-scrawled note stating that all flights would be delayed a minimum of seven hours. I thought,"Well, it looks like a stretch of drinking overpriced airport coffee for me." I returned to the bar and it was there that I got the news.
Fortunately I have a brother in Seattle and was able to get hold of him and he was able to put me up until the flights to Hawaii resumed four days later. It was a relief to get to Honolulu. Walking along the Ala Wai Canal, looking at the Ko'olau Mountains, feeling the warm sun on my back, the trade winds riffling the water, I thought, god, people enjoy screwing things up, but the sun rises, the winds blow, and the fish in the canal are going about there business.

[nomadder]

Dmb that's the only other big new event that I can also remember where I was -strange because it was near where I saw her when she came to visit my small Canadian city many years earlier.

[donfan]

[Gordon]

It changed a lot for me. Within 2 months of 9/11, my wife and I both lost our jobs; her airline went out of business and I got laid off because students no longer wanted to study in Vancouver because it was too dangerous.

So who cares about only our own little world. The world is a whole lot different now. The world is becoming more polarized all the time, terrorism is not going to go away. I think N. Korea is next on the radar screen.

[Chris]

For some reason I woke up rather early. I had just finished a temp job in Milwaukee that summer the previous Friday, and was preparing to go back to Poland. That meant getting my work visa from the Polish consulate and buying my airplane ticket.

So, my mom and I were making breakfast and my dad was watching the Today Show. I looked at the TV and saw one of the towers burning. They were talking about what possibly happened, etc when before my eyes the 2nd plane headed towards the 2nd tower and crashed into it. Right then, and for the next few days, my body went numb.

Needless to say, I didn't buy my airplane ticket that day.

As for Donfon wondering how the world has changed.. Many of my colleagues here in Poland had great jobs in travel that were eliminated as a direct result of 9/11. Security has tightened so much, it's incredible, particularily if you are traveling to or from the US. I was amazed at the security I encountered in the US this Christmas. Politically, so many things have changed that it'd be impossible to enumerate them here.

I'm sorry to see that you are rather blind to what is happening outside of your world, wherever you may be.

[Chris]

Oh, and an acquaintance of mine--a Jordanian/Palestinian friend of my Iraqi friend (confusing?)--was one of the nearly 3000 people who perished that day. I had only met him a few times, but I remembered him quite well. He had lived in Milwaukee for 15 years before he went to NYC in 2000. When the TV affiliates in Milwaukee showed his picture on TV, I was absolutely shocked.

[donfan]

[donfan]

To me even Bali was more important than 9/11.