Our ties to 9/11

Wow — who knew you could squeeze so much stuff into one day?! We left Ottawa at 8:20 this morning, and 14 hours later I'm sitting in our B&B in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia after a day filled with scenic drives, hilly walks, yummy food, walking on the Bluenose II, seeing the Picton Castle (TOTALLY cool!!), and all-around good times :-) Oh, and purple houses too!!

I'll be writing more about our trip next week, but I have to commemorate today — 9/11.

Our wedding day was September 14th, 2001 — three days after 9/11. We woke up on the morning of our wedding to news that the Prime Minister of Canada had proclaimed September 14, 2001 a National Day of Mourning. Our Master of Ceremonies was in Germany and unable to fly back to Canada for our wedding. My brother and his wife had planned to fly up from Pittsburgh, but had to drive up instead. We had two tickets to fly to Halifax for our honeymoon in NS and PEI the day after our wedding. But I was too scared to fly, especially because of the association between 9/11 and the airport in Halifax.

Flash forward 8 years — today, September 11, 2009, hubby and I were flying to Halifax to celebrate our anniversary at the same time the two planes hit the World Trade Center back in 2001. Things eerily coming full circle, in a way.

We originally planned to go to Peggy's Cove on Sunday on our way from Lunenburg to Halifax, but we decided to go today instead. About 1.5kms from Peggy's Cove, we saw a sign for the Swissair Flight 111 Memorial. Another eery coincidence that on the 8th anniversary of 9/11, we were at the scene of another tragic plane crash.

Here are a few pictures I took at the memorial. The first explains the memorial, and the rest are pictures of the memorial and the Atlantic Ocean. It's too bad the sound of crashing waves can't come through the computer screen — they really add to the drama of the memorial site and  remind you of the power of the ocean...

  Click the picture to enlarge the image

After much thought, hubby came to the realization that the three slots in the stone are the number of the flight — 111.

The clouds couldn’t have been more perfect…

I’m still feeling a bit goosebumpy from the seeing the memorial and the coincidences between September 11, 2001 and September 11, 2009. Both tragic events that we’ll never forget, both because of the impact they had on the world and because of the ties my hubby and I have to 9/11.