today i visited titanic the artifact exhibit at the opryland hotel. i hadn't intended on being in nashville, but the titanic enticed me... it was an interesting exhibit -- took about an hour and half to walk through. it included treasures brought up from the ship, such as jewelry, clothes, bolts, coal, etc...

the best part was probably the very first thing you saw as you walked in -- the bell rung to warn of "iceberg, straight ahead!" next, and most chilling (quite literally) was a rather large chunk of ice sitting in the section of the exhibit devoted to the actual lifeboat (or not) portion of the ship's journey. it was to show you how cold the water was that the passengers were subjected to -- you were supposed to hold your hand on the ice for as long as you could stand (for me about 5 seconds)... the point being, that the water was actually several degrees colder than that. frightening!

the "big" deal of the exhibit was the two ton portion of the ship that was brought up on the last journey down -- in 94, i think -- it was neat to see, but honestly not all that impressive since it just looked like a big chunk of metal with some holes drilled in it and places for portholes.

when i entered the exhibit, i was given a card with the name of an actual passenger and their class on the boat. women are given womens' names and men given mens'. i received the name of a first class woman. anyway, at the end of the exhibit, there is a wall listing the class sections' passengers -- divided by "survivor" and "lost." my lady's name survived, but her husband did not. my mother's second class name did not survive, nor did her husband. both my dad and brother's names (of third class males) died. that was probably the most impressive -- to actually see a list broken down like that.