Wednesday, September 26, 2001
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Wednesday, September 26, 2001 |
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Local residents bring home stories of support from abroad
By DAVE
HAMRICK
Fayetteville resident Ursula Graves returned from a trip to Germany and the Czech Republic last week with news of warm wishes from those two parts of Europe in the wake of the Sept. 11 tragedy. "People were praying ... people were putting flowers down ... it was incredible," said Graves, a German-born American citizen. Thousands of residents in Berlin showered flowers on the U.S. Embassy there, she said. And during a visit to Prague, in the Czech Republic, she witnessed still more outpouring of sympathy, she added. Graves found out about the attacks in Washington, D.C., New York City and Pittsburgh, Pa., from a friend, she said. "I came home from shopping and my friend said, 'I have bad news,'" she said. She turned on the television. "This can't be real," she recalls thinking. People in Europe are rallying to America's support, said Graves. "Something like that might wake people up a little bit to what a great country we do have," she said. Graves didn't encounter any delay in getting back to the U.S. from her vacation trip, but she said people on her plane had been stuck in Paris for six days. "I was so lucky to get back on schedule," she said, adding that she experienced the concern that many have expressed about the fact that the American public is not traveling. "You normally see all these airplanes above and below and all around you" when flying into Hartsfield Airport, she said. "There was nothing." On the MARTA ride from the airport, she said, there were two people per car. Citizen photographer Ana Lombardi also was traveling abroad when the tragedy struck, vacationing in Italy, and reported similar outpourings of support, including a rally at the Colosseum in Rome that drew thousands of candle-bearing mourners.
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