Ok folks, this is a personal entry about a distressing event. Please don't get upset with me when it gets distressing. I am only recounting the truth as I remember it.
September 9th, 2001. I was staying at my sister's husband's apartment in New York, in Greenwich Village, sleeping on the futon in the main room. I was at the end of my two month trip around the world and was just "passing through" on my way home. I was due to leave on the 10th and that day was going to go to the Stock Exchange.
Just after 9 we get a phone call. It's Richard, my sister's husband, telling us someone's just flown into the World Trade Centre. Immediately we put the news on, and the first reports were coming in. Someone filmed the second one coming in, and they put that on the news. As soon as I saw it I knew it was no accident.
The rest of the day and the next few days are a bit of a blur. I remember us all sat around the room in shock watching the news for hours on end. One of the guys who came to sit with us, a friend of Theresa or Richards, I can't remember, had seen people jumping out of the windows to save themselves. The towers came down in fairly quick succession to each other and I remember thinking that when the second one came down, it was a replay of the first one until I looked out the toilet window and saw it go down. I went out later in the day to see people sat in parks watching the smoke and listening to their radios. None of the phones were working but for some reason the internet was so we managed to get emails out to our family that we were OK. I remember sending one to Tony, who then kindly sent it on to all the people I'd been emailing about my trip round the world, who then sent me emails back saying they were glad I was OK.
We'd spent lunch not two days before in the World Trade Centre cafe, I remember lifts that made your stomach jump, and afterwards we wondered what had happened to those people there. My flight, of course, did not leave the next day, so I had a couple of extra days in New York. I couldn't go visit the Empire State Building and taxis could only take you so far downtown. I particularly remember going to an Indian a couple of days later downtown and making some crass remark about the mango ice cream being an insult against humanity.
The real thing I remember about my trip is the flight home. I'd spent days trying to find out from BA when I could get a flight. In the end they started flying back on the Friday. So, on Friday, I made my way to JFK International airport. My sister had told me to come back if they weren't flying out but I knew I probably wouldn't be coming back. JFK was complete chaos, nobody knew what flight they were going to take if any, and you just checked your baggage in and hoped. I had a moment trying to explain what a digeridoo was (I had just been to Australia) and had to put it in the hold as it was a dangerous instrument... I then just sat for what was probably hours waiting to see if I'd get a flight out. In the departure lounge, if you could call it that, there were no shops, nothing. I was starving and hoping that I would get through and get something to eat. I'd promised myself cesar salad if I did. Sometime a bit later the lady who had served me at checkouts came round saying "Are you Roberts?" I answered yes, that I was. She'd got me a ticket to London, and somehow remembered me, it was the most bizarre thing ever. so I finally got through the passport control and to a restaurant, where, believe it or not, they were serving cesar salad. I was squashed in economy and on a night flight, but I didn't give a shit, I was going home. None of the payphones were working but I managed to get to the information desk and ask one of the ladies there if I could borrow her mobile to call my sister. I was lucky once more as there was such a queue for the phone that soon after I got through the lady wasn't letting anyone call on her phone any more.
One thing I remember about the flight home is that I was really scared to change my watch back to English time until I knew I was back in London. You have no idea how overjoyed I was when we flew over London and I saw the Millenium Wheel. Then I knew I was home.
