One of the reasons why I love traveling alone is because I know that some of the things I'm interested in seeing probably isn't fun for anyone except me. For example, when I went to Moscow on my first backpacking trip, I made my best friend Mai walk an hour and a half with me to some random Moscow neighborhood to see a house where Leo Tolstoy had lived IN PERSON. I grew up watching War and Peace (the movie, with Audrey Hepburn), have vivid memories of my dad glued to Tolstoy books and even (attempted to) read W&P for myself. We spent two hours looking at the chairs, beds and park benches Tolstoy used daily, and it was amazing. While I was traipsing around from room to room, bubbling with excitement by every arbitrary thing I saw, poor Mai was going ''So... who used to live here?''
(Needless
to say, by the time we made it to the Kremlin museums, she opted to
wait for me outside the museums while I went inside to study the
crown jewels. The poor girl missed out on both the Fabergé eggs AND
the diamond-encrusted wagons! Sad, I know.)
So,
with that in mind, the first attraction
that made my 'must visit' list when planning my trip to Dublin was
the Titanic Museum.
The fact that it is not only not in Dublin, but also not even in
Ireland, didn't even cross my mind. I was going, and that was that.
It's not that I'm a fan of the 1997 movie, quite the opposite, but
I'm fascinated by how the ship was built and the men who built her.
Screw Kate
Winslet! Let me hear all about some random Belfast ship builder! I
spent two hours at the museum and could have spent more had I taken
the tour (which I didn't) AND read all the plaques (which I did). I
don't really remember what I learned about shipbuilding, but I do
remember learning about the process and thinking it was interesting.
The
museum is split up in sections, explaining how life was in Belfast
around 1910-1912, working conditions at the shipyard, engineering,
replicas of First, Second and Third Class cabins and the press
reaction to the sinking. Surprisingly there wasn't a whole lot of
space dedicated to the sinking itself, but you could read the last
telegrams and SOS messages the ship sent and it was depressing. I
think I was in tears by the end of it. I'm such a softie at museums.
I kid you not, I bawl my eyes out at every single WW1/WW2 museum I
visit. And Natural History museums.
To
sum it up, if you are in either Dublin or Belfast, or anywhere in
between, and if you're into shipbuilding or Leonardo DiCaprio or
neither, be sure to stop by the Titanic Museum!
