Friday, September 11, 2009

11 September

So... eight years ago today, we arrived in London, having flown from Logan Airport in Boston.
We landed quite early in the morning, dropped our baggage off at the hotel (too early to check in) and went on a wander. Just trying to adjust to the time difference and jet lag. Around 2:00 we decided to stop in at the pub, (The Beehive on Crawford St. in Marylebone). We noticed everyone looking at the TV even before we entered. At home at 2:00 it could have been a football match, but here it was too early. We went in to see the first tower burning... Yikes!!! Got ourseles a couple of pints, just in time to watch the second plane hit the second tower. There was very little information at that time and we were glued to the place for the rest of the afternoon. We eventually learned that both planes had flown out of Boston that morning!!! We thought that "bad guys" could have been in the airport when we were there. Obviously, it was dreadful and frightening as we learned about the other two planes... wondering when it was all going to stop.
Otherwise, the trip went well... with the exception of a scare at the Tate Modern the next day. The alarms went off and we were all asked to leave the building. As if we weren't scared enough! Whatever it was didn't last long and we went back in less than an hour later. We got to visit with our friends Hazel, Archie and Michael up in Chester and our friends Graham and Deb in Deptford.
We flew back on our scheduled flight which was surprisingly empty considering the number of people who's flights had been cancelled.

Today I finally had a paying gig... the first of the week. I hung close to 50 pieces of artwork in a condo over in Brookline (the clients had just moved in). It went pretty smooth and only took about 4 1/2 hours.
One beer at the pub and home to take apart a broken window that I'll have to put back together tomorrow.

2 Comments:

Blogger Wastedpapiers said...

Hello Jonanthan - good you are blogging again. We dont hear much from you and Syl these days apart from pithy comments on Flickr ofcourse! Is pithy the right word? probably not. You are both too nice to take the pith.
Yes, we remember the time you visited when the twin towers tradegy happened. Archie was a young wippersnapper and barely up to my elbow and now as tall as me - the great long lanky thing!
Watching the memorial programmes here - films by amateur film makers especially brought home how shocking it was. Still is.
Sorry to hear work has been hard to find - hope it picks up soon.

3:08 AM  
Blogger Jonathan said...

Thanks for looking, Michael.
I'll try to keep up with it.
Yes, 9/11 (as they call it) was
shocking. I kept my eye on every plane I saw for quite some time afterward. Not long after we got back we were in Davis Sq. when a bicycle had a blow-out with a big "POW".
We weren't the only ones that almost hit the deck.

4:55 PM  

Post a Comment

<< Home