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I had finished my summer intership in Paris and flown back to Beirut on September 9th. On the eleventh, I was driving with my mom to my grandma's place, an hour north of Beirut. A friend called me during our drive, and said that "2 planes have hit the WTC, one hit the pentagon, and one hit the White House!". He could be a bullshitter at times so I told him I did not believe that, and he said "Ok..".

Soon afterwards we got to our destination, and an aquaintance on the street asked us if we had heard the news... We went to my grandma's house and turned on the TV. We then saw the footage of the towers falling, playing in a loop. It was surreal. I remember thinking that the world has just entered a new, dangerous phase. I remember being horrified by the size of the killing. I remember thinking "Please, let it not be that Bin Laden dude, that will mess things up between America and the Arab/Muslim world for a long long time". Sadly that was to happen.

I was also planning on applying to US universities that year for my Master's degree, and I wondered if those attacks were gonna close those doors to me. Thankfully the doors remained open and I moved to the US in August 2002. And despite being treated differently at US airports, thankfully no American I've met was openly hostile towards me because of those events.

Interestingly enough, I had a similar experience in 2005, after I had started working in the US. The former Lebanese prime minister was assassinated in a car bomb attack, and I found out in the morning as I turned on my laptop before going to work. I knew right then that things had taken a serious and long-term turn for the worse, in Lebanon.. And in fact the country entered an era of instability from which it has not recovered yet. All the windows in my dad's office (near the bombing) were shattered, but thankfully he had been at home for lunch. I still remember seeing that link in the Yahoo page and thinking "WTF"...