It was a beautiful sunny Tuesday in my hometown of Malmö, or was it a Wednesday? Surely it wasn't a Monday? I got home early from work that day for some reason, and I strolled across Gustav Adolfs Torg, the Square of Gustav Adolf, and bought some strawberries there. Nobody acted as if anything unusual had happened. I don't think anything had by that time.
Well, I was curious about an election in Norway that had taken place the day before, so I decided to go home and hear the news about that election. I think the time was about half past three when I got home, and I didn't expect any news about the election in Norway until the news at four, but I turned on the radio anyway. There was some sort of usual music and talk show on, and I wasn't prepared to hear anything interesting, but then the hostess said that it was hard to think about ordinary things "on a day like this". I had no idea what she meant, and she didn't elaborate, but I turned on the television anyway in case something had happened that warranted some extra news transmissions. Well, suffice it to say that after I had turned the TV on I sat riveted in front of it for at least three hours. Both attacks on the Twin Towers had already happened when I started watching TV, but none of the towers had fallen yet. Also, no one knew by then if there would be more attacks, and no one knew who was behind them.
The world was very different on September 10, 2001, from what it is today. America was different. The United States was very rich, with a great budget surplus. America was at peace. Unemployment levels were low. American houses were expensive and getting more expensive still, and still people were able to buy more houses. The world seemed flush, fairly safe and fairly predictable.
The 9/11 happened.
Ann
