story149.xml

story149.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2002-03-06

As an American citizen travelling abroad on September 11, 2001, I experienced the tragedies of that day in a sense of remove. For more than 20 years I had dreamed of visiting Venice. My husband and I had planned a three-week trip to Italy for April of 2001. We planned to spend three days in Venice. Unfortunately, my mother was diagnosed with cancer in March; and we had to postpone our trip until September. For many reasons, our re-scheduled trip would only allow us one day in Venice--September 11. We took an early morning train from Florence to Venice and arrived late morning. We strolled along the canals, stopping in at various places of interest along the way. After lunch, we were browsing in an eyeglass shop when one of the shop assistants asked if we had heard about the "bombings in the U.S." We replied that we had not, and the clerk proceeded to tell us that the World Trade Towers "Torre Gemmeli" had been destroyed,that the Pentagon had been bombed, and that thousands of people had lost their lives. My husband was skeptical that anyone could succeed in bombing the Pentagon and therefore questioned the validity of the story. As we continued our walk around Venice, we encountered more and more shell-shocked looking people, all of whom were telling the same story. Finally, from the street, we heard a television report coming out of a bar. We went in to see for ourselves. There we were greeted by the now all-too-well-known pictures of the two collapsing towers and a Pentagon in flames. We had a quick dinner and returned to Florence by train. In our rented apartment we turned on the TV and learn what else we could. However, we had no access to English-language broadcasts and had to glean what we could from the Italian reports. It was several days before we could obtain an English-language newspaper. In the meantime, we decoded what we could of the Italian reports and ascertained that family back in the U.S. were unharmed. Ten days after September 11 we returned to Washington, DC on a very empty Sabena airplane. We returned to a country quite different from the one we left some three weeks earlier. Everywhere there were American flags and signs proclaining, "God bless America." And what of Venice? I can hardly remember anything but what transpired on U.S. soil on that day.