story10903.xml

story10903.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2004-09-11

When I woke up that morning it was sunny and I was happy because I wanted to visit the World Trade Center with a friend. We wanted to meet at 8.00 at the Newark Penn Station to go to NY by subway. This was my 12th day in the USA. I was completely excited. My whole life I was dreaming about visiting the United States and finally my dream came true. So I took my bagpack, and when I wanted to leave the house I got a phonecall from the College I had made a test for my studies. They told me to come there in one hour at 9am instead of Wednesday, one day later as a was supposed to. So I asked a friend of mine to drive me. We had to go to Cranford, NJ. When we got back, the day was so beautiful....I raised my head and saw the WTC, the first tower was burning and I say the smoke. It was so unreal, what had happened? I thought it was a joke. I put on the radio and they were telling something but they either didn?t know what was going on at that time. My friend immediately said that it was a terrorist attack. I had to laugh because I thought that he was joking. Then I saw a plane coming very close, but the car turned and I couldn?t see no more. A little bit farther I could see the two towers burning and more smoke was coming up,. At that time I didn?t know that there were planes involved. When we finally reached the house back in Secaucus where I lived, I got into and screamed that everyone should turn on the TV. Then the same second I saw the two towers collapsing. I couldn?t move, for hours I was staring at the scenery imagining myself inside of the buildings. What if the college hadn?t called me? Would I be there, seeing and throughliving all what others? For the next days I was watching TV. The worst for my parents in Spain, they couldn?t call me and neither could I. THey thought I was there in the buildings, as I told them before.

This had turned my life around. I?m with this city all the time, with my thoughts. And this will stay in my memory for the rest of my life. Regards for the firefighters who did the best they could. This was the worst experience I had in my whole life.