I was sitting in front of my 3 monitors watching the S+P futures, my list of stocks trade premarket and CNBC waiting for the stock market to open. The first tower had already been hit and the cameras were already there rolling. Right before my eyes I saw the 2nd plane hit. I knew at that moment, the first plane wasn't an accident, that we were being attacked. <BR>Even now it all seems like a bad dream. So many people gone forever. Our innocence gone.

I forgot to add that 9/11 is my grandmother's birthday! She is 104. Since she is senile, we still had to have cake and sing as if nothing else were happening in the world outside.

We're Americans living in Shanghai, and we were relaxing at home at about 9 - 10 p.m., when we got a phone call from an American friend of ours also in Shanghai. He was at a bar frequented by expats, and the entire bar was already huddled around the televisions. My husband told me what his friend had told him (this was just after the first plane), and like many others have posted, we thought that he was surely exaggerating or had misunderstood. Sadly, when we turned on the TV we quickly discovered that this was not the case. <BR><BR>One particularly bizzare thing is that we typically only receive BBC and 3 Taiwanese channels that exclusively play English-language movies. On that day, all 3 stations were playing live broadcasts from the US - I forget the name of the show (Good Morning America??), but they played it nonstop all day long. How they reached that decision or even got permission to broadcast it I have no idea, but we were very grateful to have it. <BR><BR>I also have to say that I was truly touched at the concern that the Chinese people showed me over the next couple of days. Even people on the street and taxi drivers were asking me if my family was ok and saying that they were sorry that something so horrible had happened.

&lt;&lt;FODOR'S Forum was where I heard about the attack!!!!&gt;&gt;<BR><BR>I, too, was on the forum quite a bit that day, though not until later in the afternoon.<BR><BR>And it has suddenly dawned on me, just now. Maybe there is some "method to their madness" of having the search function conveniently go black this week.<BR><BR>Maybe they don't want to facilitate the dredging up ("topping") of posts from that day, which some people would probably do.<BR><BR>Let them lie. Deep where they are.<BR>

I am stationed in Italy; I remember jumping in my car that afternoon and hearing on AFN (American Forces Network)on the radio that a tower had been hit. I got back to my office and turned on the TV to watch the rest of the day- the second tower hit all the way to both towers falling. I remember sitting there thinking, what checklist covers this? We scrambled and get our jets ready, only to stay here in Italy for the following months...wanting so much to be part of the action to retaliate. My family lives right across the river in NJ; my mom said she could smell death and smoke in the air for weeks.<BR> God bless those further "downrange" and God Bless America.<BR>Sia

I remember that day like it was yesterday. Brilliant, blue skies, what we call one of the "10 best days of the year". I heard of it while driving downtown and listening of all things, to Howard Stern. He was on the phone with a caller who witnessed the whole thing from his office window. The first plane we all assumed was an accident, and speculated about whether it was inexperience or a heart attack, but the minute that caller said "oh my god! another plane hit!", we knew what had happened.<BR><BR>The rest of the day was spent calling friends and neighbors who work in or near the WTC, trying to find out if they had gotten out safely, and thanking god that my husband had recently found a new job where he wasn't going into the city every day. <BR><BR>Thankfully everyone I know personally got out physically unharmed, but they were not unscarred. Many lost dear friends, coworkers and loved ones. Many others trembled when they speak of watching bodies fall from the towers, of stepping over bodies and body parts, of walking like zombies for hours, not knowing how they would get home, just stunned, the walking wounded.<BR><BR>I think of the nights after, lying awake and listening for the fighter jets, watching the TV endlessly and waiting, and for the first time in my life, actually believing that we were no longer safe, and that we would no longer go about our lives as carefree as we had in the past.<BR><BR>I am also incredibly grateful. Grateful for all we've experienced since 9/11 of last year. It's all been a gift, as will every year after this. My husband and I took our first trip less than a month after 9/11, to revisit Bermuda and our honeymoon spot, and had more fun then we had 18 years prior. I finally got my husband to agree to visit Disneyworld with the kids. Not only was it bearable, we had a wonderful family vacation and behaved like kids. Our kids were able to brush up on their Spanish on a trip to the Dominican Republic. We took our annual trip to our favorite spot on earth - Nantucket, and reconnected with old friends now scattered across the country. Our last trip was down south, just sun, fun, beach and water.<BR><BR>Yes, this last year was a gift. We here at Fodors are all so lucky to have the freedom to travel and to live the lives we do. I now count my blessings everyday.<BR><BR>Nina

I was at work a little over a mile away from WTC. I was working in a hospital and I believe the nurse's were talking about what happened. I went into one of my patient's rooms that faced the WTC. I just stared at the huge, gaping hole that was smoking. I remember just thinking how many hundreds of people had just died? Most of the day was spent in a co-worker's office watching the news. Co-worker's husbands & boyfriends had made their way uptown to the hospital covered in dust to let them know they were ok. When I took the ferry home that night there were people bandaged up, firemen, etc. It was all very surreal.

I was in Beirut on 9/11, about to board a plane to Iran for two months.<BR><BR>I had stopped to have a very late lunch when the footage of the first plane was shown on Arabic TV. I recognized the WTC tower and asked the men what it was about. Out of courtesy, they switched the TV to an English channel and we all watched transfixed as we saw, live, the second plane hit. We all knew then that it was no accident.<BR><BR>The most surreal part was that, just under the TV, was a window where we could clearly see, at the same time, a large mortar shell scar on the building across the street. The people I was watching 9/11 unfold with knew first hand the terror of war.<BR><BR>Everywhere I went in the Middle East and Iran over the next four months (solo), all that I encountered were expressions of shock, sorrow and disbelief. Ordinary people would approach me many times at day to express these sentiments; they could not fathom how this could have happened.<BR><BR>Please don't start a flame war over this last comment (as happened earlier this morning) - I'm just stating what I feel after travelling extensively in the ME after 9/11. This thread only deserves respect and my posting just wanted to bring the POV of a post 9/11 ME traveller.<BR><BR>Today should be spent reflecting on the innocent people who died in the terrorist attacks of 9/11 and for all the other "ordinary people" who are always the most numerous casualties of conflict and war.<BR><BR>

I live in NJ directly west from NYC. I was in the library and heard some rumors of an plane crash in NYC. I ran to the car and turned on the radio news. Since it was still early the news people weren't thinking of terrorism. I ran home and turned on the television news. By then it was becoming apparent we were under attack. I couldn't get through to my husband. My nephew works in a building near the towers. I had to struggle to keep the panic down. All I could think of was that my older kids were safe in the middle of Pennsylvania at college. And they were, but when the plane went down in Pennsylvania I realized that nothing and no one was safe on that day.<BR><BR>Finally my husband got through to me on his way home from work. He had to account for all his people in his department before he could leave and send everyone home. There were people in his company in the towers that day and on the plane that crashed.<BR><BR>We picked up the kids from high school early and were required to show ID to the police surrounding the schools. No one knew what to do and it was all the schools could think to do in order to protect our children.<BR><BR>My sister-in-law called from Michigan hysterical, her daughter was in college in Philadelphia. She couldn't get in touch with her and the city was locked down. We finally found her at her roommates house outside of the city.<BR><BR>There is a mountian ( some from other parts would call it a hill) from the top you could see a huge plume of thick smoke streaming southward on the horizon. Then I knew for sure that it was real.<BR><BR>It took me six months to get the nerve to drive in to see the site. It was shocking. All those lives lost because someone else doesn't like our ideals. We no longer are complacent. We no longer take what we believe in for granted. Never have I felt the love for my family so acutely.<BR><BR>Fodor family, thanks for letting me say my bit. Peace and love to you all.

12th of September was meant to be a special day for me, because I was going to turn 40. So I had booked a nice romantic hoiiday in Cuba. Havana is on the same time zone as New York, so I was just lounging by the pool on this Tuesday morning, enjoying the last day of my thirties. My friend went for a walk in town and came all excited, saying that everybody was watching CNN in Spanish in the lobby, he couldn't quite figure out what it was, looked like a video game. So I jumped to my feet, and the scene was surreal: dozens of hotel employess glued to their TV sets discovering the unfathomable. We spent the rest of our day in the room, surfing between American, British, Spanish, French, Italian channels, alas showing the same story. Since the coverage on Cuban TV was very minimal, our Cuban friends relied on us to keep them updated during the following days. I can tell you that their sympathy was almost as big as if the planes had hit Cuba. As one of them put it: "There are one million Cubans living 'alla' (over there), so it's a bit like home."<BR>

I was busy at work, in Helsinki, Finland - writing other news stories of the day. Other journalists started gathering around the tv monitors. I had to finish my report on a state visit and concentrated on that but overheard bits and pieces.<BR><BR>First I thought it was a small plane, a suicide, but as soon as the second plane was there I knew this was something much more serious.<BR><BR>I just carried on writing but switched the topic, even if it was time to go home. We all told the editors that we would stay at work and do anything that was needed.<BR><BR>I phoned people, I did interviews and actually delivered the news to some of those I talked with, I tried to get in contact with a Finnish politician in UN and found him after hours of work...<BR><BR>and wrote like a machine, hearing things that I had just written being read on the Finnish tv as soon as they were sent out by the news agency I work for..<BR><BR>and called my children who had to be on their own for a while, spoke with each one of them and told that those things were happening far away and they wouldn´t need to worry but I would have to work late because of it...<BR><BR>The first time I cried was a couple of days later.

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I'd just got back to my desk after lunch and was checking the BBC website for news. I shouted to a couple of my colleagues that a plane had hit the WTC, and they thought it was a Cessna. We did think at first that it was strange - after all, how could you possibly miss the twin towers?! Then we got a call from someone in one of the other offices - a second plane had hit. We knew then that it wasn't an accident.<BR><BR>We were nervous. Our office is just across the road from the Canary Wharf tower in London - literally - and we were sure that we'd be next. Then the rumours here started flying - the tower was being evacuated, the businesses next door had closed and employees were sent home. A friend of a colleague works for Morgan Stanley here, and phoned to update us - by this stage, we couldn't get anything on the Internet at all.<BR><BR>I was just glad to get home that night.