Where were you at 9am EST 9/11...

[bibblies]

Eh? I can't remember any great panic and stayed in LOS for over 4 more months. I can't remember what it was like around Soi 3 (which means it must have lacked incident) and I must surely have been going to Grace most nights after the bars closed. Lots of putting up with 'US, UK boom boom war' with gun mimes from my apartment motocycle boys - that's my clearest memory, from when Afganistan happened.

[Guest]

i was sound asleep. 2 1/4 miles from ground zero. 13th street and 2nd avenue. the phone rang, my ex gf. 'turn on the tv.' i did.

 

this was not registering. i was not really comprehending. firstly, i've never really been a morning person. secondly, it took a good couple hours to understand that this was a big fucking airliner and not someone's cessna that had plowed into these buildings, and not just one but two. first couple hours all i could do is watch on tv. when the first building collapsed i was still on the phone with my ex. "my god! the building is collapsing!" i still didnt get it--"no, theyr'e just replaying the crash arent they?" no. they werent.

 

i spent the next couple days mostly calling people in new york, making sure they were safe, and letting people know outside of new york that i was safe, and anyone they knew that i knew of. i was lucky in that no one i know directly was killed. my cousin's sister in law worked there, she got out of tower 2 when the first plane hit tower 1. she got on teh subway, then the long island railroad, then home, before the first tower collapsed. well before they shut down the subway.

 

people did semi-normal things, except that you needed ID just to cross 14th street and enter my neighborhood.

 

below canal street, there were armored cars.

 

the same ex gf who called me, had been producing an industrial video in windows on the world restaurant on top of the wtc just a month or two earlier. the one guy there, a maitre d or something, who had been really nice, and helpful, she found out was safe.

 

she remembered standing there with a member of the crew, looking out the window on manhattan. she remembered him saying "you know, i heard a rumor that someone wants to crash an airplane into the world trade center." we'd all heard it.

 

PS in my opinion the correct term for the people who crashed the airplanes into the building is 'monster' rather than 'coward.' they were not stupid, either, the plan was carefully thought out and not the easiest thing to pull off, and it does take a certain amount of balls to kill yourself and take people with you, no matter how misguided your cause. if you were closer than 2.25 miles to ground zero at zero hour, then feel free to correct me. otherwise, don't.

[Guest]

At the firehouse, just getting off shift.

Shitty day....

[Encore]

I flew to BKK from my country to meet my GF, after she emailed me that she was pregnant with my child. I hadn't told her I was coming, but went straight to her bar in Lower NEP, arrived around midnight.

i sat down at the outside bar, ordered a beer, and phoned her, to tell her to meet me there.

after the phonecall I looked up at the televison screen, where usually there'd be soccer or so. instaed, i saw pictures of the twin towers, no sound. I thought i was looking at a disaster movie like Towering Inferno, and looked away. a few minutes later, a farang next to me asked for the sound on, and we learned what happened.

 

Then my friend arrived, and I'm sorry to say I concentrated on her. But that was a disaster, too. The child wasn't mine, as we found out the next day, she lied like a flatfish, but then the ultrasound spoke the truth. In the end, i went with her and paid for the abortion of MrX's baby.

 

Every year since that day, on september 11, when the media reminds me of the day, i think of that night, the pregnancy and the abortion.

 

In the end, the child needn't have been aborted after all. A year later, she married MrX, and now has another child by him. Her relation with me wouldn't have worked, and we both know it. But, sometimes, the illusion can be very powerful.

[jxxxl]

Was on a business trip on the Malaysian island of Labuan - pretty remote place. I was having dinner with a colleague when another colleague called and told us what happened. We went back to the hotel and watched CNN in the pub. We were in shock, partly fueled by the fact that we had lots of friends and customers working in the WTC and surrounding buildings.

 

One thing I remember vividly were a few of the muslims in the bar smirking and giggling. It was pretty unsettling being in a consertive muslim place and not knowing what might happen.

[check_bin_krap]

Ikrang A terrible story.

[stars99hk]

In a resturant in Kwai Chung, Kowloon with a customer and my American business partner who live in New Jersey and could see the towers from where he lived, and who used to have an office on the 7th floor of one of the towers.

Customers wife walked in and said "a plane just flew into the Empire State building", We all laughed and said your crazy that happened years ago.

Then they turned on the TV in the resturant and we spent the next hour or so trying to call back to his wife in New Jersey, eventually we got thru'.

After that we went back to my apartment and spend the night watching it happen over and over again on the BBC world absolutely stunned.

[thalenoi]

reading this board whilst the TV was on.

Thought a catastrophy movie was showing on TV.

Until it dawned to me something horrible was unfolding in real time.

 

OBL did dammage the western world deeply.

What he did not realise is how deep that action will dammage the muslim world.

 

september 11 is also the birthday of my son.

[gobbledonk]

I was like you, stars - sat watching it on TV in sheer disbelief. It happened after I had gone to bed here in Oz the night of Sept 11 (we are more than half a day ahead of the East coast of the US), and I staggered to the TV to catch the morning news. Initially, I thought it was part of a trailer for some 'Armageddon' style blockbuster, and changed the channel to find some 'hard' news. 3 stations later, I realised that it wasnt a trailer.

 

Watching a memorial to the firefighters last night, and seeing that amazing footage where the firefighter looks up and sees the plane streaking overhead, it all came flooding back. How many of us have asked ourselves what we would have done if we were on one of the planes - try to save our own hides, or just rush the men with the boxcutters ? It seems that one set of passengers did exactly that, those aboard Flight 93, yet their flight garnered the least media, presumably because there was no footage of their heroism.

 

I'll be watching tonight's coverage closely to see how well they've been remembered.

[stonepony]

I was on my first trip to Thailand, in Pattaya. A girl came up to me and ask me if I am American, then told me how sorry she was. Didn't know what she was talking about but could tell by the look on her and her friends face that she was very serious.

 

Ask her why she's sorry, since her english was not so good all she kept saying is "America have problem", "America have problem", "big problem for America". I kept walking and thought that was a very strange way to be hitting on me.::

 

When I found out, I was sick to my stomach, wanted to get back to the US but no flight back for five days, it was hard for me to get into the party mode in Thailand. All I remember when I got back was seeing all those American flags on the cars. I was glad to be home.