So where were you eleven years ago?

[vicky]

Meh. 15 blocks away from ground zero. My sister and I watched as it happened.

[Deleted]

Heard it on the radio on the way to school. I though a little prop plane had hit a tower and thought "Huh, that's weird".

Then I went into school and watched the towers fall in 1st period...

[papie]

Grad school, in class. My friend walked in class late, we all looked up and he told us what happened. That was after the first plane. He is a total joker so we didn't believe him, sounded like a really stretched excuse for being late.

But he insisted it was true. We all went online on our laptops and found out about the second plane. After a few minutes, they dispatched us for the day.

[gozf]

I lived in NYC. Came up into my office from the subway to people screaming. Roommate's boss pulled us into his office, where we watched it unfold on tv.

[Deleted]

9th grade Science class. All of the teachers just let us sit in class and watch the news all day.

[sugarplum]

I was a freshman in college. I had breakfast and the news was on after the first tower was hit. They were still reporting it as a possible single engine plane crash. I left and walked to class.

As I was waiting for lecture to start, the TA came in and said "We're being attacked! They hit the second tower." Professor wouldn't cancel lecture but it was my only class for the day, so I spent the rest of the day glued to the TV. School ended up canceling class for the day.

[BunnyMacDougal]

In my hometown, 1.5 hours from DC.
I was working in an eye clinic in a hospital office suite. By 2pm I'd been recruited to draw blood for fear that the local banks would run out (should attacks continue).

[EloiseWeenie]

I was in college. I lived on campus and had just gotten back to my on campus apt from my 8am class (Bible as Literature) and had 1.5 hours before my modern dance class. I was about to get in the shower when my roommate turned on the TV and told me to get out there. We watched in shock as the first tower was burning. I still remember our horror when we watched the second plane hit, and then watching the towers fall. We cried, called our families, and prayed. We were glued to the tv, trying to make sense of what we had just seen. It's so sad.

[saraandmichael]

I was a receptionist at a local State Farm agents office. Michael and I would email back and forth all morning until I left for school.

he shot me an email asking if I'd heard about a plane hitting the WTC. I went onto cnn.com and couldn't get there because the servers were overloaded. I mentioned something to my boss who turned on the TV in our back room. We all watched in total disbelief.

I remember leaving at noon to drive to school...totally stunned at what I had seen. I got to campus and there was a police officer there that said school was shut down until further notice and to go home.

It was Noah's 3rd birthday...I was trying to pay attention to him and celebrate, but I kept wanting to watch the news coverage.

[Deleted]

I was sitting in my english class my junior year in high school. My teacher turned the tv on and we all sat in silence completely stunned.

[krismill]

I was in law school and had a late class that morning. I woke up to my radio alarm to the words "We are under attack". These DJs were known for horsing around so I didn't think anything of it and got in the shower.

It wasn't until I got to class that I noticed everyone gathered around a makeshift tv in an unused classroom. It was a long few hours before my mom or I could get a hold of my dad who was on a plane. He got one of the last rental cars at the Chicago airport and drove the 9 hours home.

[mskitkat]

High school. Math class. My teacher thought it was just a random accident, and I remember very clearly him saying to please pray for everyone, then we continued on with the class. It wasn't until the next class that we learned what had really happened.

[baconlettucetomato]

Freshman in high school, my English teacher had the tv on. I remember running out to call my aunt and uncle who lived in the city. My uncle called us later that afternoon, my aunt was trapped on the subway for several hours. Horrifying.

[Deleted]

I was in 7th grade and heading to home room. Our teacher had the TV on and was bawling her head off. We all sat down and watched the TV, in shock. We were then put on lock down and the only way we could leave the classroom was with the teachers aide.

We didn't know what was going to happen and since we lived by a military base, we went on lock down (It is the only flight training base in the Air Force so they thought they were a target).

[sugarplum]

Also, I'm glad I didn't know H at the time. He was interning in DC for the semester and I would have gone crazy.

[berbles]

In the dorms, sophomore year of college. BF (now H) called me and woke me up and insisted I turn on the tv. My roommate was annoyed. Until we turned the news on.

I was supposed to see a Weezer concert that night.

[cbwm1]

I was a senior in college. My regular routine was to get up, shower, and watch the Today Show while I did my hair and makeup.

For whatever reason that morning, I didn't turn the TV on. My mom called me and asked if I was watching the news. I told her I wasn't, that I was getting ready to go to class.

She told me to turn it on. I protested, saying I was running late and needed to finish getting ready. She used my full name and said, "Turn the damned TV on RIGHT NOW."

So I did and sat there dumbfounded. We stayed on the phone and watched in silence as the second plane hit the Towers.

I skipped my first class that morning. I went to my second class, but it was cancelled. The note on the door said, "Stay home, watch the news and keep the victims in your thoughts and prayers."

I don't think I left my dorm room (I was an RA) for three days. I was consumed with the footage and search for survivors.

[speckledfrog]

I was in college. I had two classes on Tuesday, one at 8 and one at 2. I went to my 8 o'clock class and when I got home my roommate was up watching the news. I have no idea why she was up in the first place, she was awake then. We just sat around all day watching TV. I went to my second class, a preschool lab and the teacher told us how to field any comments from the kids (I can't remember now what she said) and when I got back we kept watching TV. I lived in university apartments and everyone opened their doors and we all walked around dazed.

I remember bawling at the coverage. It was, and still is, just so upsetting.

[ProfessorArtNerd]

I was working at my part time job at a deli. A customer came in and told a plane had hit the wtc. I had just watched a documentary w my dad about NYC skyscrapers and they'd addressed the fact that it was designed to withstand certain types of planes. We turned on CNN just as the second plane hit, and watched all day. We only had about 10 lunchtime orders.

[mkesweetie]

I was in college, walking through the union from one class to another. I never made it to the second class, because I was froze in the union watching the news.

[ralphlauren]

I was in my last year in college.

[starlily]

I was in Venice. My friend and I were headed back to our hotel when we noticed crowds of people pouring out of bars with TVs showing a burning tower and many shopkeepers running out into the alleys yelling something in Italian to each other about America. We hustled back to the hotel, after getting lost due to our anxiety, and then spent the rest if the evening glued to BBC and unsuccessfully trying to call our families at home. Obviously it cast a pall over our trip, but we found that other tourists were great about sharing information and the locals tried to help in any way they could.

My flight was scheduled the day after international flights ended up resuming. Security in Milan was intense - snipers & bomb dogs everywhere, along with curtained areas for patdowns I assume. The first leg of my trip back was packed & I don't think a single person slept a wink. The last leg of my flight was DC to SF via United. I have never seen Dulles so creepily empty. My flight had all of 20 people on it.

My friend was booked on a non-US based carrier, so she was stranded in London for 2-3 weeks.

[exploding people]

I was a junior in high school. My first class was called Foods for Today, and we were in the kitchen that day. The news was on as we all came in, but it was early at that point. Only the first plane has hit and everyone thought it was some kind of crazy accident. By the time class was finished the towers had fallen. I think every other period that day was spent watching the news and just talking.

[softspot]

I was in 8th grade. Someone came into the classroom & told our teacher to turn on the tv. We watched all day pretty much in silence. We live very, very close to a nuke plant so we were on lockdown until they thought the threat was over.

[flex]

We were 4 hours behind NY. The clock radio came on around 5-5:30 a.m.-ish and NPR reported a small plane may have hit the Pentagon and one may have crashed in Pennsylvania. To this day I can't recall if they mentioned the twin towers (which had already been hit). Ex-dh and I went said "WTF?" and leaped out of bed and turned on the t.v.
We were well on our way with all the WTF's when the towers collapsed. Ex-dh had left the room but he came running back into our bedroom when I started screaming "OH MY GOD, OH MY GOD!!!!!!"

[missanne]

I was a senior in HS. A kid came into the class saying a plane hit the tower, the teacher turned on the radio and we listened from then on.

[mamasaurus]

I was a senior in HS. I went to my first class, AP English, and the TV was on--really unusual for that class, needless to say. It was me, one other student, and the teacher since I got there early. I saw about five seconds of the coverage from the first tower and said, "Is this a trailer for a movie? It is in very poor taste." Then the second plane hit while we were watching, and nobody said anything for a long time as the room began to fill with students.

I still remember how in my next class, there was a girl whose father was supposed to be on a plane out of Logan as crew, and the teacher wouldn't let us watch the news. The girl was hysterical and finally ran out of the room to try to call her mom to see if he was on one of those planes.

There are a lot of people who live in this area who work in aviation, and my high school (one town over from where I live now) was pretty close to the airport. I knew dozens of people whose parents worked for just one airline, for example. We were all terrified that Chicago was next; that a plane going into or out of O'Hare with somebody's mom or dad or brother or sister on it was about to fly into the Sears Tower or the Hancock or the CBOT to kill other people we knew; that planes would just be falling out of the sky all day.

When school let out, there was a very eerie silence because for the first time that any of us could remember, we couldn't hear airplanes. If you can imagine growing up in a place where the sound of airplane engines overhead is so constant you don't notice them anymore, it's very creepy to suddenly realize you don't hear a single one. To this day, if I go very long without hearing a plane (even if I am visiting family out of state), I start to feel afraid that something happened again.

[Doc_Lobster]

Sleeping in after my work week of 12hr shifts. My mom called me and woke me up.

[EmilieMadison]

I was in an early morning staff meeting with several other teachers. We had CNN on in the background and saw news of the first plane. We stopped the meeting and saw the 2nd plane. My asshole, dumbass principal thought that we should keep the tvs on in some of the classrooms, but still go on with the school day. So I had to explain to 6th graders that what they were seeing was real, happening right now, and hey, open your math book to page 78. I threw up in my trash bin between lessons. During my prep, I went to the teachers lounge so that I could call my mom to see if she'd heard anything from my cousin (who lived in NYC). I was a complete mess, and so was everyone else. Several parents came to pick up their kids but we didnt end school early. I feel sick just thinking about it again.

[HiC]

I was on the corner of Franklin and Hudson Streets when the first plane roared over my head and into the North Tower, about 10 blocks away. I was running late for work and had just dropped off my dog to daycare. I stayed in that spot until the first tower fell, then ran back to pick up my dog. The second tower fell as I was walking north on Greenwich Street, somewhere below Canal Street, trying to get home.