In light of Jimmy’s Recent Post, I thought it might be interesting to tell my story as well. Better late than never, eh…

On September 11, 2001, I was in London, sitting in on a MySQL Training Class that Kaj Arnö was teaching. I was listening to the course, reading my email, and chatting on IRC with my coworkers, when Indrek Siitan first started mentioning the attacks, before the major news outlets really started picking it up.

I told the rest of the class during a break, “The World Trade Center was hit by a plane… they think it was terrorists”. Class went on, but we watched the news throughout the day. I was supposed to return home on September 12, so I had to figure out what to do.

Deciding that it was better to wait it out, I picked a date “far enough” in the future to most likely be OK. I ended up having my travel agent rebook the flight for September 22. Since everyone at that time was trying to get on the next possible flight, and everyone kept getting bumped, that was a pretty good plan. I ended up making it home before some of the impatient ones. :)

In the mean time, I visited a good friend, who I hadn’t actually met yet at the time, Mats Remman in Stavanger, Norway. He hosted me at his house for a few days while I waited, then I returned to London to go home.

Where were you?