9/11

I have seen so many memorial posts on the blogosphere today, I thought that I should say something like I did last year.

Today, ten years ago, was the day the Twin Towers fell and the beginning of something very new and frightening, not only for America, but for the world. Before hand, people would happily go on a plane to their chosen destination, knowing they would get there safe and sound with the ever spoken motto - 'Aeroplanes are the safest way to travel'. It's something I always keep with me when I fly.
But ten years ago, that all changed and so the decade of this new unknown sense of something so new and yet so terrible entered everyone's minds from then on. I do think of that day when I fly too, knowing that it became the beginning of, not the end, but of a new different type of terrorist era.

On the day itself, I don't remember it. I was 6 years-old at my primary school, literally a 5 minute walk from my home. I had just started Year 2 (first grade) and the sense of being so grown up had risen. I don't remember a thing of the day. But my parents tell me that they had to turn the channel in the evening on the TV because I got upset by the pictures. Me, a 6 year-old watching these horrific images on TV, so innocent. No-one should have seen them, on TV or even live. I know some may say 'Well that's bad parenting making your young daughter watch something like that'. Actually, no. They did it because they knew it was history.
I can't remember a time where the threat of terrorism hasn't hung in the air and life shouldn't be like that. From then on, something else was added for the future generations to worry about. Something that should be so free and safe.

The last week I have watched many documentaries showing the events of 9/11 with utter amazement. In some ways, I want to have been there. To seen it from a distance, witnessed the horror of it all first hand. But then, I know those that this day is so SO real to them, they probably wish they were away from it on: an onlooker.
I remember going to Florida in the October, about a month afterwards. Everyone looked warily at each other, no-one was innocent. I had a fabulous time there, but my parents said everyone looked at us, British - foreign, as if we were the terrible people who did this ten years ago. In England this could equally have happened but it did seem strange especially as Britain has helped America so many times.

I have visited Ground Zero, about two years ago when I first went to New York. I don't think people appreciate the huge area that the towers occupied, it's MASSIVE. I am so grateful and happy to know that it won't be wasted space, that something will become of this rather sacred area really. When I went on the Staten Island Ferry that goes past Battery Park and the Statue of Liberty, you can see a definite gap in the huge towers that you can only imagine it being there. To me the Empire State Building rains supreme in New York's tallest building but in many others, it will forever be the Twin Towers. The Statue of Liberty has witnessed many things - immigration, planes, high seas, a plane landing right by it in the Hudson - but the Twin Towers might have been the most shocking and poignant of them all. The World Trade Centre may not live on in infrastructure yet, she does, as do many other lucky ones.

However, life must go on and although it is safer now, it is not completely gone. The 9/11 victims did not die in vain, but to be remembered by everyone around the globe and to be as a symbol that we are never safe. Also, they have shown for us to be wary and knowledgable of these things that can struck at any point in life.
Everyone thought it was over. I know I did.

But then, they struck again.

Six years later in a place so so close to home.


What about you guys, where were you and what do you think?

9/11

Yesterday evening, I was watching TV with my parents and we decided to watch 9/11: State of Emergency which is a documentary about 9/11 as it was of course 9 years since 9/11 yesterday. As I was watching it, it did make me feel not only a bit emotional but a bit scared. I mean, I travel a lot. I go on a plane as least 3 times every year and I've never had something like that happen to me, fortunatly. But what about those who did? It would have been terrible for those who were in the Twin Towers at the time and those on the aeroplane and those at the Pentagon.
   I don't remember 9/11. It was 9 years ago and I had just started Year 2 and I was a 6 year old girl who loved Barbies. So for me, it wasn't a big thing as I live in the UK. It would have been different if I lived in the US. But my mum said as we watched the documentary last night, that the first plane hit around 2:10pm in England. She said that she found out when her collegue at work had had an e-mail from his son saying he was okay and had flown the night before to Canada from New York. I mean, talk about luck.

Last year, I went to New York. It was a place I've always wanted to go to and one of the places we went to was Ground Zero. You don't realise the sheer size of the place until you go there. It's actually pretty amazing. I remember saying to my mum as we went up the Empire State Building and on the Staten Island Ferry that goes past the Statue of Liberty that, imagine being up the Empire State Building or on that ferry looking at the Twin Towers and seeing a plane just crash into it. It would have been an amazing and terrifing sight.
So. I wanted to write this because I forgot to add something in my post yesterday and about my thoughts from watching that programme.
Again. Thanks for reading if you got this far. Leave a comment about your experiences that day. :)

The gap where the Twin Towers were

Found in the rubble mostly intact. It used to be in the foyer of
one of the Towers.