Tuesday, March 27, 2012

Titanic Exhibition | San Diego Natural History Museum

Todd’s mom gave me tickets to the Titanic Exhibition at the San Diego Natural History Museum as a birthday gift.  She knows how much I enjoy experiences as gifts!  Todd had told her we were planning to take a day off work on Monday 3/19, so she got us tickets for that day.

We had such a great experience when we took a Monday off in February and went to Crest Café for breakfast, that we did it again.  I even found a $5 off $20 coupon on their Facebook fan page!  We both got the same things we got last time, because it was so delicious, why mess with it?  :p

Todd got the Macadamia Banana Waffle.
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And I got the Hangover Omelette with homestyle potatoes and chimichurri sauce, which I LOVE!
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After breakfast it was still raining, so we drove over to Bread & Cie and got 2 brownies to go.   Then we headed to the San Diego Natural History Museum, where we picked up our tickets at will-call.  We got in and saw lots of dinosaur exhibits.  20120319-IMG_0372_600

I had never heard of the Albertosaurus, but apparently he was related to the T. Rex, but with a smaller body and bigger arms.  The drawing of the T. Rex with tiny arms made me laugh!
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The Albertosaurus and me.
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This was a hands-on exhibit where you crank this lever and the eggs hatch and a little dino peeks out!
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I forgot what he was, but I thought he was neat.
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Then we went into the Titanic Exhibit. We paid extra $5 each for the audio tour, but it didn't add that much to the tour. 20120319-IMG_0382_60020120319-IMG_0379_600

I was not allowed to take any photos inside the Titanic Exhibit.  It was fun but not extremely impressive. The exhibit wasn’t that big.  But it was really neat to see all the artifacts that they’ve retrieved from the bottom of the ocean over 80 years after the sinking!  (This year is the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic, thus the exhibit.)  A few things surprised me.  First, some of the first class cabins on the Titanic cost over $5,000 at that time, which is over $40,000 in today’s dollars!  That’s how opulent the Titanic was. The other thing that struck me was, how much personal stories they were able to describe.  For instance, I read biographies of multiple men on the Titanic who were traveling with their mistresses!  I guess it was common at that time to have a French or British mistress and an American wife waiting at home, or vice versa. 

After we got out of the Titanic exhibit, we looked around a little more, including going to the Best of Nature photographic exhibit on the 4th floor.

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Even though I’ve been to Balboa Park countless times and have taken pictures in front of the San Diego Natural History Museum, I had never been inside before.  I really enjoyed the visit.
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The outside of the SDNHM. 
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Balboa Park is so beautiful.  It’s actually the biggest urban park in the U.S.  (Bigger than Central Park in NYC!) 
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2 comments:

  1. What a fabulous day! A great gift too.

    When we saw the Titanic exhibit in Detroit in 2003, they handed everyone a ticket with an identity of someone on the ship. At the end we all got to see if we were survivors. I knew I wasn't because of the title, I was a Reverend. Out of 6 of us, only one survived, one of my nieces. We got totally in to our characters and researched them when we got home.

    You mentioned the many men with mistresses. My friend John was a film director who was hired by Star Lines to film the voyage and was traveling with his mistress! They found the body clutching her purse with nothing in it and originally pronounced his wife, who wasn't even on the Titanic, d3ead woo. She refused to claim his remains and he was buried in an unmarked grave.

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  2. Nani - it must be the same exhibit because they also handed us each a ticket with a identity of a passenger. I was "Mrs. Edwin Nelson Kimball Jr. (Gertrude Parsons)" in 1st class, and I checked at the end and I survived. Todd was "Mr. Rene Aime Lievens" from Belgium, in 3rd class. Mr. Lievens did not survive.

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