Keynote Motivational Speaker Recalls 9/11

911-OH_SR
Creative Commons License photo credit: azipaybarah

Before Keynote Motivational Speaker Career

I think 9/11 is one of those events where most people in this world will recall where they were and what they were doing when they first heard about the planes crashing into the World Trade Center in NYC.  Much like the Apollo 11 moon landing and maybe even the Kennedy assassination, we will never forget this moment in time.

I actually do remember the moon landing as I was watching it with my family on our black and white TV but I was a bit too young to remember the Kennedy assassination.  The 9/11 event I definitely remember quite vividly and this was way before my keynote motivational speaker career even started.

On The Nile River In Egypt For 9/11

On the morning of 9/11, I was not even in North America.  I was actually on the Nile River in Egypt on a small cruise ship during my vacation tour there.  This was a trip of a lifetime to finally see the Great Pyramids and the other magnificent ancient Egyptian ruins.  I was on a three night cruise from Cairo to Luxor and I along with my fellow passengers heard about the news from an American couple in the dining room of the ship.

They had just seen the news on a TV on the street market area.  They even claimed that the Egyptians were trying to hide the news from the tourists for some reason.  Maybe they didn’t want us to panic or anything.

Major tourist sites in Cairo already had heavy security even before 9/11 since some years ago, there was an attack on a tourist group which devastated Egypt’s tourism market.  It was just recovering when 9/11 happened.

Lots Of Machine Guns As A Response To 9/11

I took a plane from Luxor to Abu Simbel which is an awesome and huge ancient Egyptian temple in the south part of the country.  One of the immediate changes the Egyptians did right away as a response to 9/11, was surround all jets on the tarmac with machine gun toting military dressed in white before letting any passengers on and off the planes.

I had never seen so many machine guns in my life before and at first, this was a bit unnerving but after I thought about it, I actually wished that there were more of those military guys around.  If an incident did happen at any of the main tourist sites in Egypt, I don’t think they really had enough guys to protect us.

The increased security at the planes and elsewhere were probably a good idea since I would imagine that tourist protection was now a priority.  In fact, the American couple from our cruise ship even suggested that if asked by the locals where we are from (since they always tend to ask this question), we should not respond with ‘North America’.

Continued With Trip During 9/11 Crisis

It’s debatable whether or not it was a safe thing for westerners to be travelling in an Arab country around the time of 9/11.  I was going to even say that I was from Singapore if asked since I could probably get away with that with my Asian appearance.

However, I for one was not about to cut my travel short so I continued with another three days in the country with an internal flight (again with armed security around the planes) to Sharm-el-Sheik to scuba dive in the Red Sea, before meeting up in Barcelona, Spain with my pharmaceutical sales work colleagues for a week long cruise of the Mediterranean Sea.  We had done well for sales so our reward was to have our sales meeting on a cruise ship which was not cancelled either.

It was a company meeting and vacation combination for us.  Even though I was not yet a keynote motivational speaker at that time, I was slotted to make presentations to our entire sales force during one of the days at sea since I was a pharmaceutical marketing product manager and sales trainer.

I don’t recall seeing much change in security in Spain or any of the Mediterranean ports of call during that week though.  But the UK was another story altogether.

I did notice that on our return flight back to Canada, the stopover in Heathrow in London already had major security screening implemented.  Instead of a leisurely stroll to a connecting terminal, we were herded like cattle through a few different checkpoints and each passenger was physically frisked at the final one.

In the connecting terminal where all the retail stores and duty free were, we saw more machine gun toting military personnel, this time from the British armed forces of course.  Since I was in transit most of the time for over a week immediately following 9/11, I didn’t really get full details of what happened except for occasional reports on BBC when I did see an available TV somewhere.

I learned most of the details regarding 9/11 after I made it back home in Canada (Montreal at that time).  Like my work colleagues, we were glad to be back home as our own Canadian airports started ramping up their security.

Where Were You In 9/11?

So that’s my account of the time period around 9/11, long before I ever became a keynote motivational speaker.  What about you?  Where were you during 9/11?  Feel free to share in the comments section below.

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