Queen Mary & Scorpion

We went to the Queen Mary yesterday, my husband and I. It was a lot of fun, we took some cool pictures that I'll post tonight after work (they're still on the camera, and I need to re-size them before uploading). We originally went because we saw a television commercial that they were having a Titanic exhibit. It was fascinating, well worth it in my opinion. An excellent location for it too, during the walkthrough of the exhibit, we walked outside of the ship and saw the QM's propeller, and realized that we were outside of the ship, over water. That was awesome. We also learned a lot about how the cruise ships of old were set up and about how it would have been to be on one, which made our tour of the QM more relevant. Unfortunately, photography wasn't allowed in this exhibit. There was a book that we could have purchased with photos of the items, as well as additional information, but we decided against it. There was also a WWII exhibit that I thought was a little more fleshed out when I visited many years ago. But I could be wrong, I don't remember it much. That was pretty cool too, just a bit small. When we went to the bow of the ship on the promenade deck, there was a Carnival cruise ship getting ready to leave. Another person told us that it wasn't leaving until 10pm that night, but the passengers were already wandering around with their lifejackets on. We were speculating as to whether that's a requirement for them to be on deck while the ship departs. Anyone know? We've decided that we'll take a cruise one day, probably for our anniversary next year (our 2nd). I put it in his PDA. ;) The last thing we did before we left was tour the Russian Foxtrot class Scorpion submarine. Another self-guided tour, this one was led by (presumably motion activated?) speakers throughout the sub. It was really cool, we went through the whole sub alone, since it was almost closing time, so we stopped to take pictures in several places. We even turned the periscope a little! Shhhh, we weren't supposed to operate anything. It must have been really interesting to live on a sub like that. I'm not sure if modern ones are any better, but some of the bunks on the Scorpion have just a couple of inches of clearance before pipes, and the tour guide voice said that sometimes the men put a blanket on a torpedo and slept there. I can't imagine 78 people there... there were maybe 8 individual bunks for officers, and the rest hot bunks. But even besides sleeping arrangements, 2/3 of the people are awake at a time, that's a lot of people around in not a lot of space! They say that a former resident of the sub is there 5 times a week, but we obviously missed him. Again, pictures to come later. =) Oh, I forgot to mention, my employer is paying for my conference after all. SCPPOA paid for $250, my employer picked up the rest of the registration, plus my airfare. All I need to pay is the hotel and food! In a one-on-one with my supervisor, she did tell me that there wouldn't be a full time position in the next fiscal year, and almost certainly not in the one after that. That's okay though, they pay for conferences and professional meetings, so I'm happy with them!