cheribob

The San Jose eathquake in 1989. It was originally estimated to be 6.9 but later changed to 7.1 on the Richter scale.

Melnq8

I was (and am still) living on the island of Sumatra, Indonesia during the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and devastating tsunami.

I was living in Kuwait during the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

I was in Bahrain in 2002 the day the US Embassy was firebombed by anti-American protestors.

I was in Bahrain the day Gulf Air Flight 072 crashed into the Persian Gulf in 2000. We'd just landed at the airport minutes before the crash.

I was living mere miles from Columbine High School at the time of the 1999 massacre.

I was living in Dhahran, very near Al Khobar, Saudi Arabia at the time of the 1996 Khobar Towers bombing.

Melnq8

Oops, misread the title - didn't realize you were asking specifically about events in Europe.

_jinx_

Stayed at the Grand Hotel, East Berlin, in August, 1989--just a couple of months before the Wall came down. Came and went through Checkpoint Charlie (felt like James Bond!).

Back in Berlin in January, 1990. Used a pick to knock off pieces of the Wall that I still have.

Jinx Hoover

jcoz23

Labor Day weekend 1997... My plane to London was just landing at Heathrow early in the morning, and as soon as the pilot pulled into the gate he announced there was news just in that Princess Diana had been killed in a car crash. That week all of Kensington and Buckingham Palaces seemed like they were buried in flowers. My friend that I was visiting lived near Buckingham Palace and we sat on her balcony and watched the funeral procession the following weekend.

shelly_m

We were in Paris during the days just prior to Pope John Paul's funeral. Though it was a sad occasion, it was a beautiful time to visit Notre Dame. The entire cathedral was lit up with candles in the Pope's honor.

We then went to London and were there on the day Prince Charles married Camilla. At Buckingham Palace there were many protesters, and we saw the police arrest a guy holding a sign saying that Charles should abdicate.

logos999

I was in Venice, when Elvis died. It was so sad...

edgecorp

We were flying out of CDG in early August 2006, and we noticed that security was so much more stringent than it had been when we arrived 10 days earlier. We got home to hear about the attempts to bomb American planes leaving London and made an assumed connection. Also thanked our stars that we hadn't flown out of London....

bif00

I do remember being in London in the mid 80's for Remembrance Day and hearing that a bomb had gone off, not that I saw it in the news at all....but as we were on a doubledecker and sitting up top and at the front, as it neared Piccadilly, we saw the driver AND the conductor get off and RUN away while everyone just SAT there...we were spooked I suppose and got OFF and jumped onto another bus and never heard anything more about that even though we tried to find out...maybe we were just scaredy cats at the time.....it was a swell visit to Londontown regardless !

clarasong

Yep, we were on a cruise around S. America just after 9/11 and someone spotted a person in the ocean...a kid floating on a "skidoo'...jet ski...Cruise ship turned around to pluck him out of the sea...a very scared Mexican boy who had been drifting for several days and nights...Made CNN.

SemiMike

Convinced (with some difficulty) the SO to take our first trip to non-Paris France (Normandy) two months after 9/11. We were in a Bayeux hotel room when news came about the plane crash in NYC. Turned out to be mechanical issues, as I recall, but it still shook her up considerably, bringing back her earlier concerns.

kanoneli

I remember being in Paris when the world found out "Who shot JR!" It was big news, believe me! BTW, who DID shoot JR?

hwinokur

I was backpacking through Europe in '95. At a pub in Prague, I had beers with a couple young Americans. They were heading to Pamplona the next day for the Running of the Bulls. It was a couple weeks later, while reading a magazine on my flight home, that I discovered the young man killed by a bull was the one I had hung out with 2 days earlier. I couldn't believe it.

cmeyer54

Death of Pavaroti this past September while we were in Italy; in Milano for the Italian F1 Grand Prix where Ferrari took the championship lead!

LoriS

Great post. Probably too many to count, but here are a fe recent ones that come to mind:

--In France when the French soccer team won the World Cup. The night of the final match, we were in Valence having dinner at Michel Chabran. The staff kept running back into the kitchen to check the score. We left the restaurant as the match ended - everyone was honking their car horns and screaming "Vive la France". The next day, we were in the place de la Concorde when the French soccer team was on the balcony at the Crillon.

--At the Westin Trianon Palace when the Tsunami struck southeast Asia.

--In Berlin when the G-8 meeting in June 2007 was in northern Germany.

--In Paris in 2006 when the students were rioting.

--On Crete in 2006 when Greek and Turkish military aircrafts colliding near the island.

--Not Europe- but in Bangkok in Sept 2006 for the most recent coup.