A year has gone

A year has gone since the shocking images on our television became documentation of what we experienced in the middle of our capital, Oslo.
In the afternoon on Friday, July 22, 2011 Tullen and I were sitting in one of our favorite restaurants: Amundsens Bryggeri og Spiseri relaxing over a beer and a glass of Soave.  Then the unexpected happened.
A powerful BOOM made the window-doors shake, everybody around the tables looked at each other with question marks and some of us rushed out to see what was going on.
In Stortingsgaten some of the windows in Ferner Jacobsen were blown out. We believed they had have a small explosion in the house because restoration of the shop was taking place at the time, and when returning to the restaurant the television continued to send direct from "Tour de France".
No sirens from emergency cars were in the streets. We turned our focus once more to the drinks.

BUT then the TV screens changed. The images from the Government Quarter replaced the sport sendings. We understood that something extraordinary had happened.

My immediate FaceBook message to family and friends was:

Hospitals are in catastrofy alarm. One confirmed dead Horrible situations in Oslo's center. Primeminister office blown out. He is secure. We were close to City Hall and windows vibrated but everything is ok on our side.

The facts became even more horrible when the killing at Utøya was reported in the news during the night. Next morning the volume of the terror attack became clear.
Norway had been hit by a terror attack .

Tullen and I decided during breakfast the next day that nobody should take our town away from us, and in the morning we walked down to the area of the attack. We ended up as many others that day at Oslo Cathedral where the flower ocean already had begun to develop 

Now a year has gone and the flower ocean area has recently developed into a memorial park. Today on July 22, 2012, people all over Norway and around the world will use some time to rethink "where were you when the bomb exploded". Many of us will take part in different arrangements linked to the 22/7 day.
Norway has changed. We have changed, but our lovely capital Oslo is still one of the most peaceful places on earth. The city is ours and will always be so.