Funny how coincidences can stack up in your life. If they really are coincidences. For instance, every trip I have taken to the United States since 2001 has been followed by some kind of disaster.
My first trip on this side of the century, in May 2001, was to Florida. It included a journey of over 3000 miles (if I remember correctly) from Florida up to Michigan and back again. One of the first pictures I took of that journey was the picture on the left, depicting an airplane lining up with the World Trade Center skyscrapers in the distance. A very ominous picture, if you ask me. Four months later, two airplanes flew into the skyscrapers over there and caused them to collapse in the worst act of terrorism seen to date.
About a year and a half later, I went to Florida again. My friend Johan and I traveled all over Florida in a rented vehicle, went to Benny Hinn crusades and ate pancakes at IHOP. And, we saw the launch of the United States space shuttle Columbia, as clearly seen on the picture to the right. We stood along the harbor of Titusville and watched as it blasted off into the skies, and then two weeks later, it burned up over Texas upon reentry to earth.
Last summer, I went to Minneapolis to visit relatives and attend a church conference. I arrived in Minneapolis on a Thursday, the week after the Oasis summer conference 2006 in Skövde. Nothing very disastrous happened during that week, with the exception on the day that I left for home again, and the British police just arrested a couple of men in Britain that tried to blow up airplanes using liquids. Fortunately enough, my home trip was routed through Amsterdam instead of London, so we didn’t have to carry our belongings in clear, plastic bags. But there were a lot of security police carrying submachine guns at the airport.
I’m mentioning all this because today, a Thursday, the very week after the Oasis summer conference 2007 in Skövde, I woke up to find that the I-35W bridge over the Mississippi in downtown Minneapolis just collapsed with presumably 9 dead, 60 wounded and 20 missing. I drove over that bridge, oh, just about a year ago.
Maybe I should stay home next year. :)