I remember most everything from that day.
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Me too. I could see the smoke rising from the Pentagon from my office in DC and we watched in horror as the events at the WTC unfolded since we knew there were colleagues in there. We (Lockheed Martin) lost 6 people in the WTC that day.
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I may have told this story before, but I was 11 at the time and left on a 3-day school trip very early that Tuesday morning. It was out at a camp so there were no TVs or anything, and none of the kids had cell phones back then. The faculty/chaperones huddled that morning and decided not to tell us what had happened (at least not in any detail). So when we got back that Friday, we had no idea we were coming back to a changed world.
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I spent the whole day surrounded by veterans.
Went home to my wife who was pregnant with our first child.
After a while of watching coverage I suggested we turn off the TV and go work on the nursery. That helped a little.
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I was in DC at the time. Someone in the elevator at the office asked his friend if he heard what happened earlier in NYC, a plane crashed into the World Trade Center and it was like a war zone up there. Didn’t think anything about it, went to my desk, pulled up the WaPo homepage with a headline that simply said, “ATTACKED”. Went to the break room where there was a television just in time to see the second planet crash.
Our building was evacuated and I was lucky enough to catch one of the last metro trains for the next’s several days. Walked out of the station and saw the plume of smoke from the Pentagon. My then girlfriend was home and actually heard the plane hit.
Found out later that several of my teammates who were supposed to be at the Pentagon that day fortunately weren’t. Another day was a DC firefighter who was assigned to help there in the aftermath. Eric said it was sickening and surreal, but avoided going into much detail.
Not a day I’m ever really going to forget.
Hold on, still processing this
Pizza in Napoli. Also it is crazy how much Maradona and SSC Napoli stuff there is. It is hanging everywhere.
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Be careful. With Maradona memorabilia around, that white powder may not be Parmesan.
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Oh, my two weeks in the UK was pretty awesome and the Tate recommendation was especially excellent but I think Liverpool was my favorite stop of the tour.
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Enjoy!
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Nice. Looks like the west side of the island? Nicer beaches, but no view of Vesuvius. I am envious, though I do prefer the Amalfi coast – especially Positano.
We are on the east side between the port and the castle. I’d love to go to Amalfi, but is absolutely overrun with people now. If I could do a late September or mid April trip I’d do it, but have no interest in going this time of year when places like that are ass packed. with cruise ships.
Same goes for Greece. We went to Naxos last year. It was amazing, no cruise ships stop there. Everyone we spoke to who had been to Mykonos and Santeria etc said it they were miserable and packed.
Ischia is great so far, very relaxing and beautiful, 25% less the cost of Capri and not full of tourist. It tested our rudimentary Italian last night trying to order food.
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Looking at the map again, we are more northeast than east
I do agree on time of year in Amalfi – I have only ever been there in October. I also visited Capri once, and even in October it was wall to wall tourists. I blew the budget on a beautiful luxury hotel with a vista to the north (including Vesuvius) and had a wonderful time, but decided to stick with Positano and environs on the return.
Enjoy!
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As a rule of thumb, it’s best to avoid Europe’s vacation destinations in August. Europeans get a metric shit-tonne of vacation time, and typically take a multi-week break in August, taking up residence in the travel hotspots. The only exception to this is Paris. It’s actually quite nice to go there in August because all the Parisians fuck off to the south of France.
Of course, this means that you should not ever, ever, ever go to the south of France in August. Just imagine arriving at a quiet little fishing village in Mexico, only to find it overrun with New Yorkers.
Or overrun with the French. shudder
In my experience, the French in general aren’t bad and those of the south are basically cheerful beach bums who just want to ride scooters, smoke and fuck (not necessarily in that order). Judging the French by the nature of Parisians is like judging Americans by the nature of New Yorkers.
North to south, France is about 1,000 miles. I know, because I have driven it multiple times. For comparison, Houston to New York is 1,600 miles. So comparing Paris to the south of France would be like comparing New York to Mississippi.