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The tragedies of Sept. 11 marked one of the most horrific occurrences in American history. The attacks not only robbed the nation of innocent loved ones, but also undercut the security and confidence many American citizens had previously, without even realizing, found comfort in. Prior to the devastation, we took our overwhelming sense of safety and privilege for granted, not appreciating how fortunate our country truly was. We were happy. We were innocent.

And then we woke up to the brutal reality of the violence that exists in this world. We opened our eyes to seeing, hearing, and even feeling the fear. Everything that we thought held us up seemed to wash out from under our feet. Too astonished to weep, too overwhelmed to fully comprehend it all, we banded together in an attempt to salvage anything concrete; we came together as a nation.

In the wake of the World Trade Center, The Pentagon, and Flight 93, we were forced to imagine not only the downfall of a great city but the severity of the wounds to our great nation. We reached for something, anything, to hang on to, and found our strength in one another.

On the one year anniversary of the tragedies, a time of great sadness and patriotism, I found myself in the midst of a foreign culture, in what seemed to be the farthest place from where I wanted to be on that day. I wanted to be home in New Jersey, with my family, my friends, the people who I had turned to at the time of the crisis. Instead, I was three days into my semester in Worcester, England, in the company of three other American students who felt the same as me, plus a flat of foreign students who just did not get it and a country of people who could not understand what we were going through that day and could not possibly be expected to relate to what we went through one year before.

At the time when the United States was mourning, I stood at a small gathering in a student union building in the midlands of England, joined only by my three fellow American students and our British study abroad director. As we set our vision on a television screen in the corner of the open room, we wiped at puddles in our eyes, re-crying the tears we had cried so many times over the past year, and trying to tune out the life that went on around us. British accents roared, people chuckled and during one span, the drumming of a loud machine drowned out the mellow sound of Rudy Giuliani’s voice while he began to read aloud the names of each victim.

I was shocked and frustrated. I wanted to ask for some CNN, some Dan Rather and some Katie Couric. But instead, I was left with a British bloke, constantly cutting into the ceremony at ground zero to give his detached commentary on a tragedy his nation did not face.

This was the first experience in a series that revealed to me the diverse European reactions to the attacks on America. Upon hearing my American accent, many Europeans would enquire where exactly I haled from in the states. My answer of New Jersey, usually received an “oh,” accompanied by a confused, “where exactly is that?” look. When I explained that I lived 40 minutes from New York City, it never failed to get some kind of reaction, whether it would be sympathetic or otherwise.

On Sept. 12th, the night after my overwhelming realization that not everybody in the world was tattered by the events of the previous year; my shaken, once sturdy, view on world affairs was turned upside down and inside out.

“It is your own fault you were attacked,” the Swede told me as we walked along the river Severn. “Your country deserved it.”

Out of my element, I again found myself in tears, this time in a verbal bout in the defense of the values of my country.

“Americans only care about themselves,” he told me. “You’re too proud and arrogant, too superficial and when innocent people are killed in other countries, you do not think twice about it.”

He pointed to a commercial broadcast on Swedish television, shortly after the 11th, featuring what he described as an American man carrying a gun, marching to fight back. He mocked it, saying all Americans wanted to do was fight, defend ourselves and show our power.

“Of course we needed to fight back,” I told him, “how could we just allow our country to remain vulnerable, not retaliate, not defend what we believe in?” I stood beside the river, in the foggy English twilight, astonished by his blatant hatred of our country, trying to relay a situation and a feeling that was so understood at home. As we argued, I realized that as hard as I tried, he was not going to get it. He was not there that day; he was not frightened in its aftermath. To live through the flames is different. The shock, the vulnerability, and the helplessness cannot be given justice in mere words. One may hear of a tragedy, but cannot feel the grief of a nation unless they have lived within it.

Later I realized that as shocking as his words were, they were spoken in ignorance. We were raised in different cultures, brought up with different beliefs, and taught different histories. I do not recollect learning Swedish history or government in the duration of my American education and the majority of his knowledge on the United States had been derived from Hollywood films. We came from opposite ends of the Atlantic, both with a right to our own views.

Sept. 11 remained a hot subject throughout the endurance of my stay abroad. There were always the “where were you when it happened?” and the “did you know anybody?” questions, which were sometimes followed by the embraces of complete strangers. Most people were curious, some ready to share their experiences—where they were, how they took it, and how their cities and countries reacted. Everyone seemed more than willing to express their personal views on the attacks and on the reaction of the United States. The outlooks of the various Europeans opened my mind, and I found it interesting to listen to each individual, take it in, and roll with the punches.

Still, when I was far from home, crossing the North Sea on a ship en route to Norway, I felt a sense of comfort and hope when I was asked the same familiar questions about the tragedy. With my answers, the Norwegian man whom I had just met, kissed my head, hugged me, and whispered, “God Bless.” And I realized that despite cultural differences and varying life experiences, people oceans away can empathize with one another.