My first serious earthquake experience was when I was a student at Pisa University. I was studying in the Scuola Normale library, top floor, a thirteen century building, the place where the infamous Count Ugolino was imprisoned with his family.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ugolino_della_Gherardesca
It was the philosophical section of the library, apparently I was the only one who realized that an earthquake was going on, the other philosophy's students where so absorbed in their Hegel and Plato that didn't note that all the book shelves were vibrating.
I understood that time that I wasn't a real philosopher.