My Customary London Post
Jul. 7th, 2005 04:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sherryillkEh, well, I don't really have much to say about it really... I caught it quite early this morning, a bit before 1:50 AM (I know this for sure since they had mentioned the current time during an interview of a journalist live in London outside Aldgate) and I'm pretty sure I caught the first CNN "Breaking News" report on it... It actually interrupted a report on something else that I was quite interested in and I was a bit upset to see it cut mid-sentence.
That is until I realized what was happening. At the time, it was only the tube bombings, in Aldgate for sure. It was just by luck that I was channel surfing and landed on CNN at that moment and decided to stay... I was so desperately hoping they weren't terrorist attacks -- there had been rumors that it might have been a power surge but it quickly became obvious that it couldn't have been power surges... It would have worked for the explosions in the tube but the buses?
Anyway, I followed the story for the next three hours -- up until 5 AM (I don't usually sleep until 4:30 AM so it wasn't that bad) and they were all saying all these things -- six explosions in the metro and three buses... Now that it's been confirmed to be three in the metro and one bus makes me think how effective rumors really are if CNN were reporting on them as though they were real.
Around 3 AM, Luc came online on MSN and I started messaging her even though she lives near the Scotland border in Northern England rather than in or near London... I thought maybe a Brit could tell me what's happening easier than the news...
Anyway, I was surprised to learn that most people weren't at all panic, which was definitely good. She was the one who actually told me about the undetonated bomb in the bus... Scary...
We both kinda tossed our concerns about London and NYC around for the next few hours... She was planning on a trip to London next week and decided it was just too soon to be going to visit and we both became afraid of what this sort of attack would mean on New York City as I'll be going back there in August and she is also going on a trip there next month as well...
I couldn't help but think that these terrorists shouldn't give ideas to other terrorists. Back at the beginning of the school year, my roommates and I tossed around the idea of what would happen should the terrorists decide to bomb the subway -- it'll be total chaos! Now it's almost as though part of that fear has become reality -- even though it didn't happen in New York. Sure, they'll tighten security on the major transit lines but how long will this last? Even I know we don't have the money or the manpower to do this indefinitely.
It really is just sick that something like this could have happened in London. After everything we have done, after our war on terrorism, something like this can still happen...
We both didn't want to talk about this gloomy business. I do feel back about moving from this big topic but it just couldn't be sustained... There are only so many times you can go, "I feel so sorry for the Londoners" and "this is just terrible!" in a conversation. So then we moved into talking about my study abroad in London and we got all girly about what we would do when we finally meet after all these years. After all, we've been pen pals since I was in the 8th grade (wow, that's like six years already...) and we've always talked about meeting somehow. This would be our best chance. And from what I heard, I'll probably get a week off in October so we could meet then!
It was bad that that was when our conversation really started to perk up... *sigh*
I heard that the focus in the G8 Summit has shifted from global warming and poverty in Africa to terrorism. Damn. I understand it but I still don't have to like it. I really wanted to know how Bush was gonna respond to the whole global warming issue. And what was the point of Live8 if the summit is gonna talk about terrorism?
It just had to happen on the first day of the G8 Summit and the day after the 2012 Summer Olympics were awarded... I seriously wonder if the Olympics were coincidental or not since it seems to me that G8 would be the biggest target...
Ah, well, hopefully they'll catch who did it and we'll feel a sense of false security. :\
That is until I realized what was happening. At the time, it was only the tube bombings, in Aldgate for sure. It was just by luck that I was channel surfing and landed on CNN at that moment and decided to stay... I was so desperately hoping they weren't terrorist attacks -- there had been rumors that it might have been a power surge but it quickly became obvious that it couldn't have been power surges... It would have worked for the explosions in the tube but the buses?
Anyway, I followed the story for the next three hours -- up until 5 AM (I don't usually sleep until 4:30 AM so it wasn't that bad) and they were all saying all these things -- six explosions in the metro and three buses... Now that it's been confirmed to be three in the metro and one bus makes me think how effective rumors really are if CNN were reporting on them as though they were real.
Around 3 AM, Luc came online on MSN and I started messaging her even though she lives near the Scotland border in Northern England rather than in or near London... I thought maybe a Brit could tell me what's happening easier than the news...
Anyway, I was surprised to learn that most people weren't at all panic, which was definitely good. She was the one who actually told me about the undetonated bomb in the bus... Scary...
We both kinda tossed our concerns about London and NYC around for the next few hours... She was planning on a trip to London next week and decided it was just too soon to be going to visit and we both became afraid of what this sort of attack would mean on New York City as I'll be going back there in August and she is also going on a trip there next month as well...
I couldn't help but think that these terrorists shouldn't give ideas to other terrorists. Back at the beginning of the school year, my roommates and I tossed around the idea of what would happen should the terrorists decide to bomb the subway -- it'll be total chaos! Now it's almost as though part of that fear has become reality -- even though it didn't happen in New York. Sure, they'll tighten security on the major transit lines but how long will this last? Even I know we don't have the money or the manpower to do this indefinitely.
It really is just sick that something like this could have happened in London. After everything we have done, after our war on terrorism, something like this can still happen...
We both didn't want to talk about this gloomy business. I do feel back about moving from this big topic but it just couldn't be sustained... There are only so many times you can go, "I feel so sorry for the Londoners" and "this is just terrible!" in a conversation. So then we moved into talking about my study abroad in London and we got all girly about what we would do when we finally meet after all these years. After all, we've been pen pals since I was in the 8th grade (wow, that's like six years already...) and we've always talked about meeting somehow. This would be our best chance. And from what I heard, I'll probably get a week off in October so we could meet then!
It was bad that that was when our conversation really started to perk up... *sigh*
I heard that the focus in the G8 Summit has shifted from global warming and poverty in Africa to terrorism. Damn. I understand it but I still don't have to like it. I really wanted to know how Bush was gonna respond to the whole global warming issue. And what was the point of Live8 if the summit is gonna talk about terrorism?
It just had to happen on the first day of the G8 Summit and the day after the 2012 Summer Olympics were awarded... I seriously wonder if the Olympics were coincidental or not since it seems to me that G8 would be the biggest target...
Ah, well, hopefully they'll catch who did it and we'll feel a sense of false security. :\
