History has always amazed me. Whether its a war, an explorer's adventures, or new discoveries, I am always captivated. Last week, because it was Spring Break my parents, one of my sisters, and I went on a road trip for days. We made a giant loop from Utah through Nevada, down part of the California coast, and then back through Nevada, and ending in Utah. It was pretty crazy, and there isn't that much to talk about, so I'll spare the boring details. On the last day of the trip (Thursday), we were in Las Vegas, and had arrived the night before. On Wednesday, we had a long drive getting to Las Vegas, so I wanted something to entertain me. At one of our stops, I got two magazines, one about the Titanic, and the other about 100 important discoveries. Well, because we had been listening to Catching Fire on the stereo, I couldn't focus and actually read the article about the Titanic, so I just flipped through the magazine and looked at the pictures. Like I said, history has always amazed me, especially the Titanic. So I flipped through the magazine, looked at the pictures, and finally got sick of trying to read, and put it down. Well, when we finally got to our hotel for the final night, The Luxor, we hauled our suitcases up to our room, and then went back out for some food. On the way out of the hotel, we noticed that at the Luxor they had a Titanic exhibit on display. Really excited because I had been viewing pictures of the Titanic all day, and reading a little bit when I could, I eagerly asked my mom if we could go to the exhibit in the morning as our final activity. When she said yes, I was overjoyed.
So the next morning, we got up, went out to breakfast, and then came back to the Luxor to see the exhibit. Practically bouncing up and down with excitement I was eager to view all the artifacts and such. Imagine my surprise when I found out just before we entered the exhibit (from the handy-dandy National Geographic magazine who's article I did not read until standing in line) that they had an actual piece of the Titanic. I was amazed and shocked just to hear it, I couldn't wait to see it.
Walking in, we began to feel sorrowful as we read about many of the people who transferred to the Titanic at last minute because of many different situations. Of the 2,000+ people who were on the boat, only around 700 lived, and more than 1,000 of them perished with the boat.
Walking through the exhibit, it was dead silent, everyone very respectful of the rooms. We were amazed as we walked up to the grand staircase, well it's replica obviously. The floor was made to look like the pattern found from tiles that were actually in the grand staircase on the Titanic. We walked into a room with a replica of the promenade deck, which they had the air slightly chilled so you would feel as though you were actually outside. We walked through many different rooms, and hallways, some playing classical music, others filled with the sound of sirens, nearly silent, but like the ones that would have been heard on the Titanic that morning. Or when we would walk through a nearly pitch black hallway filled only with display cases on the right wall every few feet, and you could hear the sound of water dripping and metal groaning. It was a truly amazing affect. When we finally walked into a room that had an iceberg in it, I could not believe my eyes. Not knowing if it was real, I walked over and laid my hand on it, (as was encouraged) and was shocked to feel the cold from it. I held my hand there for a few moments, and then had to pull away from the cold, with water still on my hand. It was a truly amazing affect. In the next post, I'll tell you more about the artifacts and such. This post is getting a little long by now. :)
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