story2621.xml

story2621.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2002-09-11

Celebrating our first wedding anniversary, my husbank and I left for Italy the evening of September 10. Arriving in Venice, Italy early in the morning of September 11, we learned that my luggage was lost and thought that to be the worst thing that could happen to us. When we got to our hotel, our room was not ready yet, so we decided to walk around Venice. Finally, our room was ready and we had checked in (I still had no luggage). Because the New York Giants football team opened their season on the night of September 10 and my husband, being a big fan, had to miss the game, he turned on CNN to find out the score. That's when we saw that the WTC was on fire. We watched and heard it was a plane that hit one of the towers. We kept watching. We watched the second plane hit. The first thing I tried to do was call my sister, who works on Wall Street, to make sure she was all right and that she was at work and not anywhere near the towers. I was able to get through on the international phone lines. Someone who answered the phones didn't know if she was in the office or not. After that, I was not able to get through to the United States. My husband's brother is a NYC fireman, so naturally, we were worried about him also. A day later, we learned that ALL of our friends and family were safe, and most importantly alive. Italy became a blur for us and we couldn't wait to come home. My story is a good story compared to many people's story. My heart goes out to all the people who don't have good endings to their stories. You are all in my prayers.

Nancy Varelli Salzano
Brooklyn, New York