Today was a really relaxed day. For those of you who do not know, the UN gets specific holidays depending on the duty stations and the duty stations will depend on the religion and the population. So for us, we get 4th of July off, obviously, because it's an American holiday, as well as the 6th of July this year because it was Eid.
So we had two days off this week. Which makes Tuesday that one inconvenient day in between which meant that a lot of people did not show up to work today.
So it was slow. To say the least. I did a bit of work and some research. I ended up staying in for lunch to do some work and then left for work around 2pm since there was nothing really for me to do.
I decided to head down to the World Trade Centre Museum today since it is free on Tuesdays after
5pm.
Pro-tip: go online and you can get the tickets there rather than trying to show up in person.
Before I headed out, I ran into a friend who I talked to for a while before I headed out to go home and work on some other stuff.
I walked all the way down to WTC (Since I did have the time, why not?) and met up with a friend to go inside.
Before we could even get into the building, there was a lot of security and metal detectors - airport style - that every single person had to go through.
This metal detector stuff has seriously become my life... It's scary, I mean I understand why, but it sometimes gets a little frightening how far they're willing to go for security (it also creates a huge
tension between the public and security/police).
I went in with a friend to the memorial and I have to say that it is one of the most well done and beautiful places I have ever been in.
On the walls were plaques with descriptions of information about 9/11 and all around the museum, it was quite spacious and the ceilings were high, which made the room feel very big and kind of cold.
All around me were pieces of the aftermath, rebar, fire trucks, a satellite antenna, stuff everywhere.
The most beautiful and my favourite part was the artist who had taken some of the metal steel and melded it into a sign of love.
We went into another exhibit where it gave us the timed before, during and aftermath of the 9/11 attacks.
It was heartbreaking.
They had breaking news clips, people's books, and the worst was the "during" where they had films
that showed the planes crashing in as well as voice recordings of the last time the people on the plane tried to call their friends and family and tell them they loved them.
There were even plans of crew members on one of the planes that knew they were being hijacked and they all planned to throw boiling water on the hijackers to get them to stop. Unfortunately, it didn't work, we heard and read about the last few moments of that crew.
The memorial was not just based on just the 9/11 attacks, they also talked about the pentagon attack on the same day as well as the attack on the World Trade Center back in the 1990s.
The section we were in also spoke about what Al-Qaeda was and how it came to be. There were experts on Islam, on the invasion of Afghanistan and the development of terrorism from there.
They also had some amazing vehicles inside, ambulances, police cars and fire trucks that were remains from the aftermath of the event.
I think one of the saddest parts was definitely the part where they talked about the aftermath - how
they tried to ID the bodies of the dead and how quite a high percentage of the remains have still not been identified. All around the actual memorial, there were photos of the missing - families who were putting up posters to try to find their loved ones. It was a quite heartbreaking thing to see.
And to think about. I could not imagine being one of the family members without closure, wondering whether or not a loved one was gone or not and holding on to that hope that maybe - just maybe, that person was still out there.
We all got kicked out around 8pm, so my friend and I took the MTA up to 34th, where Koreatown is and grabbed some dinner! It was my first time eating real Korean food and let me just say - it was good. My bowl came still sizzling to me and we got a bunch of different foods to accompany it.
Even better is that I learned that if you combine soju with beer, you can't taste it. Culinary experiences!
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