If you Google my name, you’ll find this link. It’s the minutes of a meeting in a sub-group of The Norwegian Association of Higher Education Institutions that was held in the small Norwegian town of Bodø far above the polar circle. Here, preserved for all eternity on the internet is a document telling me exactly where I was and what I was doing when the planes hit the Twin Towers.

9/11 has been etched into our memories and is shaping the future. It is the defining moment for my generation – the day the world changed. Much has been made of the events that transpired in North America on that day, but the impact was felt worldwide. On this the 6th anniversary of those dreadful events I give you my personal story of 9/11 in Norway:

I had a weird job back then; Elected Representative for the 32,000 students at the University of Oslo. And as part of my position, I served on many associations and boards. It was in this capacity that I found myself traveling from my apartment in Oslo to the airport on September 11th. The meeting would take place at the Bodø University College at 10 AM so with a 3 hour flight ahead of me, I showed up at the airport carrying only a book and my wallet. It was 6 AM local time. There were few other passengers and I walked straight through check-in to the gate without security giving me a second glance. The flight on the half-full plane was as uneventful as I had expected and it was only thanks to my book that I didn’t fall asleep. Landing in Bodø, I realized that my decision to wear only a shirt and no jacket was a bad one. Far north of Oslo the city was nippy and autumn was grabbing hold.

The meeting commenced at 10 AM. There’s not much to say – it was filled with technical and administrative decisions and little else. A few minutes before 3 PM (9 AM New York time) I started receiving SMS messages. At first it was just one, but then as we got closer to the top of the hour, more and more messages started arriving. This was unusual and I started wondering if one of my colleagues was playing a prank on me. The break was called and I went into the hallway to answer my phone in private, half expecting some elaborate gag to be underway. The phone had reached it’s limit of 20 new messages and the first one simply read “CNN.” I deleted it immediately and a new message popped in. It was from my friend again: “Are you watching this?” I deleted this message and another one came in. Scrolling through the remainder of the messages, I realized they were from my friends, one of my brothers, and some colleagues. The messages themselves were sketchy, mostly containing only acronyms like “CNN” and “WTC” or saying “Turn on the TV!” or “I can’t believe this is happening.” While dialing my friend Erlend who had sent me the first message, I scanned the hallways for a TV but couldn’t find one. “Are you watching this?” he shouted. I could hear the TV on in the background. I asked him what he was talking about but he cut me off yelling “A second one! A second plane hit the World Trade Center!” I was dumbfounded. What on earth was he talking about? The conversation continued for a few minutes before I fully grasped what he was trying to say. Someone had crashed two planes into the World Trade Center. Unbelievable. The other people from the meeting were coming back. I stepped in last, putting my phone down and staring blankly at the other participants to see if I had heard correctly. Several of them were staring back. “Someone crashed planes into the World Trade Center” I said out loud, more as a question than as a statement. Coming out of my mouth it sounded ridiculous. Yet a few of the other people nodded solemnly. I can only assume they had also heard.

The meeting lasted another hour. My mind was racing. What did this mean? Could it have been an accident? But he said two planes. That couldn’t be an accident. The meeting was called to an end right before 4 PM. I immediately called my brother. He was in our apartment sitting on my couch watching CNN. “The South Tower collapsed!” he yelled. This story just kept getting more and more bizarre. Then he started shouting. “The other tower just collapsed too!” I was staring at one of the other people at the meeting who was also talking on the phone. Her facial expression told me that she was experiencing the same thing I was. Standing there in the hallway of a school on the other side of the planet and far from home I suddenly felt like I was in some sort of insulated environment locked off from the rest of the world. It was almost as if everything I knew was collapsing all around me and I could only experience it through my conversations with people on the outside. We went to a waiting car to make our way back to the airport. We were flying back to Oslo a few hours later. At least that was the plan.

On the way, I called Angela back in Vancouver. She was sleeping (4:15 PM Norwegian time = 10:15 AM New York time and 7:15 AM Vancouver time). “Go turn on the TV!” I said. After a few confused questions she was awake enough to understand what I was trying to tell her: “Someone crashed planes into the World Trade Center. Go turn on the TV!” That was all I could do.

Half an hour later, we found our way to a bar with a TV at the airport. It must have been around 5 PM. The Norwegian newscast was grim. They were showing clips of the second plane hitting the South Tower – the plume of fire and smoke unbelievably large and ominous – then the South Tower collapsing and finally the North Tower collapsing. Video of scores of people – white with dust and debris – running through New York’s streets and the Pentagon on fire was accompanied with unusually agitated commentary about the carnage half a world away. Then the Prime Minister appeared asking people to stay calm. My colleagues were on the phone with their families, one of them trying to assure his young daughter that no one would blow his plane up and that he would be home shortly. I was wondering if the plane would leave at all.

At the gate, I was told that the airline had had an unusually high number of last minute cancellations. It was an open invitation to stay behind. I went on board and sat in my assigned seat, the next passenger five rows in front of me. The sunset was spectacular: Thick orange and red spread over the cloud layer as we rose to cruising altitude. The contrast between the beautiful sunset I was watching and the sheer horror that was unfolding in New York was numbing. I just stared out the window until the plane touched down in Oslo three hours later. The airport was deserted. Everyone was home with their families. All the TVs were tuned to the news. On The Airport Express train to Oslo Central Station the few passengers were sombre and quiet. It was as if a dark cloud had descended on the world and was suffocating everyone and everything. And while the train was making it’s way back to the city centre, I slowly realized that this was just the beginning of something much worse.

At home in my apartment, my brother was still glued to the TV in my room. He had made some pizza that was now cold. It felt weird sitting there watching the planes hit and the towers crumble again and again while we were eating. It was as if we were watching a Hollywood movie. Except there was no make-believe. And it was equally impossible to comprehend the horror facing the people killed and those left behind. For us it became a morbid TV show as more and more disturbing video and images kept coming in.

The next morning there was nothing else in the papers. At work people were numb from watching the same scenes again and again. My friend Anne came in to my office and just sat down silently for a long time. “What just happened?” she asked me. I couldn’t give her any assurances. I was sure this would lead to war. Later on in the day other people dropped by, everyone with the same vacant stare, everyone worried about the future. Someone voiced the concern we were all suppressing – that this would be a catalyst for George W. Bush to start a large-scale military action against anyone he didn’t like. And surely enough in the days to follow the Axis of Evil was invented.