fish, fish, got my wish!

[mereilin]

The letters finally came from the school with the classroom assignments, and Danny is getting the same teacher he had last year. The one he loves. The one we love. She's been reassigned to fourth grade.

And there is much rejoicing.

In other news, I took Danny to see the Titanic artifact exhibit in Hartford today, just the two of us. Sadie had been invited to spend the day with one of her friends from school and I didn't want him to feel left out of the fun. She was originally invited to Canobie Lake amusement park, but those plans were rained out and they went to a giant indoor playground instead. And to Applebees for lunch. She had a blast.

Danny did the audio tour of the exhibit and actually learned a couple of things he hadn't known about the Titanic. There was also a big wall of ice for visitors to touch, to help us imagine how frigid and miserable the passengers must have been. The exhibit also helpfully noted that salt water freezes at a lower temperature than fresh water so it was actually even colder. Ouch.

There was a recreation of a first class cabin and a third class cabin as well as a really cool representation of the boiler room. There was only one boiler but it was displayed in a little alcove between two mirrors that made it look like a really long wall of boilers curving off into the distance.

We also were given random boarding passes that had the name of an actual passenger on each one, and the last part of the exhibit was a giant list of all the passengers showing who survived and who didn't. Ours didn't, but really the odds were against them when something like two-thirds of the people on board died.

On the way home I took Danny to McDonalds (his choice), and then I let him have some free time on the computer. Not a very productive day but all in all a pretty nice one, especially since we came home to such good news!

Comments

[sharpwords.livejournal.com]

Good news about Danny's teacher for sure!

And is Danny really interested in the Titanic? I work (for another 2 days before I start my new job) right next to the dock where it was built. I'll see if I can dig out some photos.
Hopefully the big exhibit planned in Belfast for 2012 will actually happen.

[mereilin.livejournal.com]

Danny's been interested in the Titanic for a couple of years now. How very cool that you work near the dock. Danny was very impressed. :)

I think the hardest things to look at were the personal effects of the passengers. It's amazing how gripping the story still is after almost 100 years.

[whobyfire78.livejournal.com]

Hey, it sounds like you had a productive day to me...you spent some quality one-on-one time with your son. Congrats on the good news about his teacher :)

I've always been fascinated by ships and shipwrecks, including Titanic, since I was a kid. A few years ago I was in Halifax, Nova Scotia and visited the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic; they have a huge Titanic exhibit with deck chairs that were pulled from the sea where they had floated after the ship went down, along with a lot of personal items recovered from the wreck and a bunch of items donated by survivors. I also visited the cemetery where the vast majority of the dead are buried. It was really moving - hundreds and hundreds of graves, many of them without names...countless headstones that just said, boy, name unknown" or "woman, unidentified." What a horrible way to die too, freezing to death in the middle of the ocean.

Anyways, I'm glad you had a good day :)

[mereilin.livejournal.com]

Oooh. Too bad Halifax is a 12 hour drive; I might consider it if there was any way we could do it in a day, but it sounds like a long-weekend affair at the very least.

Danny is really hot to go to the new Titanic museum in ... I think it's Missouri or something. They built a scale model of the Titanic to be the outside of the museum; it's very cool.

Oh, and thanks. :)

[benkylemom.livejournal.com]

YAY!!!

[aliastaken.livejournal.com]

That exhibit sounds cool. We always do the audi-tour at places like that; they are so much more informative than just walking through. Will the Titanic exhibit travel? I'd love to check it out.

[mereilin.livejournal.com]

It's in a few places across the country and apparently internationally, and it's definitely traveling. I'm not sure where you are, but here's the link:

http://www.titanictix.com/

My understanding is that there will be new venues in the fall.

[sashafenn.livejournal.com]

I wonder if thats the same exhibition I saw when I stayed on the Queen Mary in California, about three years ago. It was the perfect venue... in the bowels of a real liner seeing all these amazing artifacts.

Great news about Danny's teacher! It made me smile. I am teaching Year 4 again this year. I shall watch his progress with great interest. :-)

[midnight21.livejournal.com]

this is very fascinating! Even before that Titanic movie came out I always had some weird fascination with it. It's too bad the museum isn't anywhere near Wisconsin though. I would have loved it.

I also heard that the heart of the ocean necklace is on display there too, worn by kate winslet and celine dion...

[mereilin.livejournal.com]

You're about 10 hours' drive from the museum my son most deeply wishes to visit. I can't imagine us going halfway across the country but this place looks fantastic for any Titanic buff.

http://www.titanicbranson.com/