The day the world seemed to stop for a while. It has been 10 years today that the World Trade Centre collapsed and buried almost 3000 people underneath it. I'm usually not great at remembering what I did a week, a month or a year ago. But for the last 10 years, I have always remembered what I did that day.

It all started pretty out pretty normal. I was home from school that Tuesday, aged 14 and doing homework in my dad's office. I had a computer, but no TV.

Around 3pm, my friend calls me on my mobile, telling me that the World Trade Centre was in flames, she had just seen it on TV. I laughed it off, thinking there must be a new disaster movie out, probably starring Bruce Willis or someone of equal calibre. A few minutes later, my dad also called me (he was out at the time), saying he had heard the news in the radio and was urging me to turn on the TV.

I ran upstairs to the flat and turned the TV on just as the first tower began to fall. I couldn't believe it. It was on the main news, and they kept repeating that two planes had crashed into the World Trade Centre towers. I was gobsmacked when I saw them zooming in on objects falling out of the second tower. Objects, that turned out to be people jumping to their certain death because they were trapped in the tower. I remember one man with a red tie who was falling head-first. The photo would go around the world.

While I was still trying to come to terms with it, the second tower started to fall. This was New York City, something like that was not supposed to be happening. There was a dust cloud, and then the screen went grey until the dust started to settle. I remember people on the street running in to help, strangers comforting each other in the streets of Manhattan, tears streaming down their faces. I kept watching the news, which then started to show repeats of the events - the planes flying into the Twin Towers, the panic in the streets, and the towers coming down.

Eventually, I got a call from another friend. She said that she had friends or relatives (I don't remember exactly) in New York who worked around the WTC and she had not been able to get through to them. The news coverage was driving her mad and she was very worried. She needed a friend, and something to take her mind of things. We decided to go to the cinema, away from mobile phones, radio, TVs and the internet, where nothing could remind us of what was happening in the world.

We watched Bridget Jones' Diary. On the way back home, we came past the newspaper house, and they always put out the latest edition in their front window, so people waiting for the bus could read it. And there it was: Front page, a picture of the debris of what used to be the World Trade Centre. At home, my entire family spent the night watching the news.

To this day, I have a copy of my hometown's newspaper from 12. September 2001.

A class trip shortly afterwards was rearranged, so we could lay flowers outside the American Consulate in Düsseldorf.

I can't believe it's been a decade, but I can still remember it as if it was yesterday.