We were on holiday in Menorca with some friends and their 1yo son, it was their first holiday since the baby had been born. I think we had an apartment with a shared swimming pool. I assume we flew out on the Sunday or the Monday, we hadn't been there long.
On the Tuesday we went out for the day, we had hired a car and we drove around the island looking for stuff to look at, I think, I don't remember this part very well. I remember popping into a bar and asking for directions somewhere and on the TV I could see a building on fire but didn't think anything of it.
We returned to the apartment in the early evening and headed into the town for dinner. As we approached the town square we could hear the bongs of the BBC News at 6. They were unusually loud. I have this recollection of people starting to run, or walking faster towards the big screen. We heard the opening lines of the news, I can't remember exactly but it was something like, 'America Under Attack' and we started running. As we turned the corner we saw a massive TV that one of the bars had rigged up showing footage of the planes going into the Twin Towers. It was 7pm in Spain on Tuesday September 11th 2001 and we'd spent all day completely unaware of this huge worldwide news story. We ate dinner and watched the news in disbelief.
The next morning my friend and I queued round the block of a small newsagent buying every newspaper we could find, just like all the other Brits. There was internet obvs but there weren't smartphones and there weren't good, frequently updated news websites. I'd brought a copy of the Economist with me and for the first time I read the Asia section. In one story there was a nonchalant mention of the Taliban and Al-Qaeda. It already seemed like a more innocent time.
The week before we flew out we'd bought a flat, my first. The deal actually went through on September 10th. As I devoured the newspapers I remember being terrified about mortgage rates and house prices. It felt like a different world now.
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