Happy Birthday Robin and remembering 9/11

It was Robin’s birthday on Sunday, but he still did his family duty and cooked Sunday breakfast for us both.  Mmmm, very tasty it was too.

Sunday breakfast

The weather was atrocious, freezing cold and wet, so we were pleased that we could hibernate at home for the day and didn’t need to venture out into the bad weather.  Dinner, at his request, was Satay Pork and veggies served on rice, followed with a slice of birthday fruit cake, and a glass or two of bubbly.  It was an occasion, after all.

Cheers for the Birthday Boy

Special request for his birthday dinner

We can certainly remember the terrible time 20 years ago.    Not that we knew of the events unfounding at the time, when we were out for the evening with a group of friends enjoying a meal at a Malaysian restaurant.  It was a great night out, celebrating with three of our group who were having September birthdays. On leaving, we were told that the Efpos machine was playing up, so we had to pay manually, the old fashioned way.  Then we drove around to the petrol station to top the car up with fuel, and the same thing happened – the machine wasn’t working, strange, but we didn’t really dwell on it at all.   It wasn't till some time later that we were told that all credit card transactions were routed from New Zealand via the Trade Centre in the Twin Towers.  Who would have known that, we certainly didn’t.  We all said our goodbyes and returned to our respective homes to get to bed, unaware of what was happening half a world away.

What a shock early the next morning to hear the dreadful news on the radio as we were preparing to leave for work.  We snatched a little time in front of the TV and watched in horror as the terrible scenes were replayed over and over again, then had to travel to our places of work.  Back home in the evening, we were glued to the TV as the story unfounded, trying to make sense of what we were watching.  It wasn’t just the Twin Towers which had been attacked, but the Pentagon as well, and a fourth hijacked plane which was brought down by brave passengers who had found out what was happening and decided to fight back.  It was all so unbelievable.

Fast forward to 2008 and we were on an overseas trip, spending a week in New York after a couple of months tripping around England.  We wanted to see what had happened to Ground Zero.  Construction had started and we were lucky to be guided to a building overlooking the site where we had very good views through a large glass window.  It was certainly quite sobering to be looking out over the busy building site and reflect back on that terrible time when terrorists attacked the USA.  Even living half a world away, down here in New Zealand, we felt the pain and horror of that day.  Of course, it all went on for months, as the recovery missions and clearing up went on and on. 

We watched the 20th Anniversary of 9/11 on TV and the brave relatives as they read out the names of those lost.  Our thoughts are with you America, on this anniversary.