I remember what a beautiful day it was waking up, and how bright blue the sky was. It was a cool out, not the normal hot summer that it had been for the past three months. I was typing a reflection paper due in class that day when my best friend’s mom Instant Messaged me on AOL asking to me to look out my dorm room window to see if the World Trade Center was bombed. I remembered that happened in 1993, so was very surprised by her asking and went to our common room.

I went out to our common room, to see the North Tower on fire. There were two other classmates there both saying the report was a small prop-plane that went out of control. I ran back to my room to let my friend’s mom know that we were both okay (also to tell my parents), and the North Tower was on fire. By the time I went back to our common-room that had a panoramic view of the New York Harbor, there were more students. Some in towels (it was 9am on a college campus), many in pajama pants just waking up trying to find out and make sense of what we were seeing.

Then we knew. A second plane flew right into the South Tower, cutting right into it. The explosion looked like something out of a live-action movie- only this was real. Standing there, we sadly knew it. I ran to my room, packed a small bag, and went to find my best friend in a different dormitory. I ran across a path and she was on her way to see me. From that hill we could still see the towers on fire. I saw boats coming down the Hudson river and parking themselves up against Manhattan. I would later find out how important these boats were.

From that hill my friend and I watched the towers come down, feeling the ground tremble.