A Seemingly Endless Abyss

The word that I can use to describe today is solemn. Not that the morning or late afternoon was, but our trip to the 9/11 memorial definitely changed the way that I felt about certain things. I want to write about the 9/11 memorials first because it was the highlight of my day. I have never visited a museum that was so intense.

The first thing we came across was the expansive pool with the hole in the bottom. The water seemed to endlessly flow into the pit, but it didn’t have much meaning to me until after I visited the museum. While I was inside the museum, I wanted to get a sense of who died, how they died, and what the effects were of their death. My first realization was when I entered a part of the exhibit that showed the faces and names and every person that died as a result of 9/11. Inside that part of the exhibit, they even had videos that would tell details about the person, and sometimes they would tell how their family members remembered them. I was in complete shock as to how many people lost their spouses, family members, friends, and coworkers.

After that part of the museum we watched a short film about the rebuilding and placement of the 9/11 memorial. It took many years to rebuild and I think this also symbolized how it took many years for people to recover from the effects of 9/11. I enjoyed how the exhibits didn’t only speak about the Twin Towers. It also spoke about the crash into the Pentagon and the crash into Shankesville. The crash into Shankesville affected me the most because the passengers on the plane actually fought to stop the hijackers. At the exhibit I got to hear the voicemails that they left for their family members and spouses, it just got to me that all of them died.

The end of the exhibits spoke about the motivation of the hijackers and the political effects of 9/11. I thought that this was important as well because it is something that I have never been able to comprehend. All the acts of 9/11 are hard for me to comprehend actually, it seems somewhat unreal to me. It seems unreal that other human beings could carry out such a devastating act. It also saddens me, I felt completely exhausted after just being in the museum.

 

This is the name of an honorable man who died in the attack on the Pentagon. I did some research on him but to keep this blog short, this is the link to find out more about who he was and what he did. http://pentagonmemorial.org/explore/biographies/ltc-dennis-m-johnson-usa

In the morning we went on a tour of NYU, however I really didn’t feel like it was for me. The campus was just too broad and it was also too artsy for my tastes. The Lombardi’s pizza that we had (my suggestion) was nothing short of some of the best pizza I’ve ever had before! I’m looking forward to eating even more great food on this trip. Toodles.