However looking into it further there was to be a lot more to this journey........so getting the metro.....pretty easy ....we have done it in many countries it didnt really faze us! However we had to change lines...we start on the red line and then after around 30 mins we change to the blue line and then go straight to downtown long beach that part takes around 1 hour so with getting to the station and then the metro journey then getting the free bus to the queen mary its about 2.15hours each way, which was ok it wasnt the time that bothered us it was the journey on the blue line!!....we would be travelling through neighbourhoods that.....how shall i put it....are overpopulated with your stereo typical gangster types!! The sort that neither of us would have ever encounted before! For example one place we stop is compten! This is a particulaly bad neighbourhood which many rappers mention in there lyrics! I believe this is the neighbourhood the dre and ice cube grew up on! Basically rough as hell! Now there are probly some laughs after what i just wrote but that is the only way to put it! And after reading many very poor reviews about this line we was a little concerned! Examples of things written in the Reviews were..... Groups of the "community" talking aloud about how they loved beating up white people"! Talking about there time in La county jail, brutal fights happening, people carrying guns, the usual of youths getting on the train thinking they own it! People selling all sorts of crap to you like a half completed crossword! And all these reviews were in april this year!! Basically it was saying avoid it! If you went on it you were to put your headphones in (providing they werent expensive!) and keep yourselve to yourselve and DONT stare/look at anyone! Right......i was thinking this is quite a rule book just to ride the bloody metro! after a while thinking about it we decided that fuck it we was going! it seemed so silly to miss out going somewhere just because we are tourists! And we werent silly we had travelled on many different modes of transport in many countries we knew what we were doing! We planned our route planned what time we was going and that was it ..no going back!
My mum had mentioned this to me a few times but i wanted to surprise her by going i knew she would be really happy that we visited & i knew my grandad would be so happy that i visited, he was probly watching over me exploring his favourite ship.
We got up super early and where out the door by 8am we decided best to ride in the rush hour! Safety in numbers and all that! There was no staff at the station so we had to work out what tickets we needed ! We decided on a day pass just incase we had to detour quickly!! We boarded our fist train on the red line! It was fine we arrive at 7th street to change to the blue line! And it was quite clear here that we were tourists ! With no staff anywhere it was up to us to navigate ourselves to the right train! We boarded the blue line train and we were off! We had to sit apart for a while as there was many people on the train but sat together half way through! And the further we got along the route more of the "locals" got on! Someone started selling chocolate and we found ourselves experiencing "the blue line!" We listen to our music the whole time and just kept ourselves to ourselves didnt get our cameras out just the usual commen sense things you do when your in a unfamiliar area! We had to change trains at one point which was a little nerving! The driver announced the train was terminating and everyone had to get off.....me & luke just sat there like fuck! But it was fine we just got off and straight on a waiting train! We heard many conversations from the locals! It was quite entertaining listening to them speak! It was a whole other language!! We made it to downtown long beach in one piece ! And quite frankly dont know what the fuss was about! I will be writing a review about the dreaded "blue line" and wont be making it sound scary! Yes it was a long journey on a train stopping at many "rough" neighbourhoods, and occasionally you might feel intimidated but overall it was fine no one bothers you and we couldnt look or sound more like tourists and we stood out like a sore thumb! And we survived! We travelled at rush hour and used our common sense and didnt allow ourselves to feel intimidated and i am so glad we did as what greeted us at the other end was simply stunning.....
....the beautiful queen mary :)We got off the metro and boarded the "passport" freebus and 15 mins later we were here looking on at the queen mary in awe :) she was beautiful :) i couldnt believe i was really standing in front of her :)
Let me give you a brief history....my grandad worked on this ship as a cabin steward and many other jobs during its maiden voyage sailing on May 27th 1936, i have been told he had a absolutely amazing time on board.... lots of laughs with his friends and it was the time of his life and his favourite time before the war, i have seen a few pics of my mums of him when he was on board he looks very happy :) The Queen Mary and running mate Queen Elizabeth were built as cunards planned 2 ship weekly express service from southampton to new york city. Queen Mary was the flag ship (the lead ship) of cunard line from 1936-1946 then she was replaced in that role by Queen Elizabeth. During the war she was turned into a troop ship and ferried soldiers as necessary then after the war was refitted for passenger service. Both the Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth dominated the transatlantic passenger transportation market until the 1960's when Queen Mary began to age and although still among the most popular transatlantic liners, was operating at a loss, so after several years of decreased profits she was officially retired from service in 1967. She went on sale and the highest bidder was long beach so on 31st october 1967 she left southampton for the last time and sailed to the port of long beach california and that is where she remains permanently moored and serves as a floating hotel, tourist attraction and museum. We are unsure what other trips my grandad may have taken on the queen mary but when my mum visits one day she will find out :)
We approached the ticket booth and having already emailed them i knew that we would be purchasing a first class ticket, which included entrance to the ship with audio tour, entrance to the submarine, and normally a ghost tour but that wasnt currently unavailable, so we decided to do a guided tour of the ship during its time when it was a cruise liner as this was the time my grandad was on it, the other choice was a guided tour when the ship was a troop carrier which would have also been interesting.....next time! And we also got another exhibition included and we picked the princess diana exhibition.
We went to the submarine first as it was there in front of us, we got to go down and explore it! It was just how it was during the war, it was great fun and extremely interesting, we couldnt believe the conditions that these people had to live! We thought we had it bad in the dorm! But there beds were tiny! Infact all living quaters were tiny! As you walked through to the different sections there was commentary on each part, it was a great start to our day.
....Exploring the submarineNext we headed onboard....we were taken straight to the prom deck (the deck that has the promanade going all the way around the ship which you can walk around) and into the main entrance, we had ten minutes or so before our tour so we took ourselves into the main area. There were some shops and a cafe it was great just to wander and take it all in :) when our tour Began we had a great tour guide and he was pictured in the leaflet/guide you get when you get on board! We didnt realise until we left! It was a great tour and lasted around 45mins we had chose to do a tour of the ship when it was a cruise liner so we went to all different parts and the guide explained the difference in classes and where the different classes went to socialise and eat, see shows etc, all classes had the oppourtunity to do the same things but the environments were different depending on what you had paid! We got The oppourtunity to venture Down to one of the rooms it was beautifully decorated and had some original features in it....one of them being a original fan.
..some features of the tourThe top left pic is a feature piece of art in the 1st class "evening area" where the dances went on, and underneath this is the room it is featured in....this particular piece of art and room have been featured in many films, bottom right is a pic showing the long corridors in the passenger section and the guide was pointing out the "bannana" shape of the ships main frame, its hard to notice it unless you are standing there but its to give the ship more stability, the next pic up is a original fan in one of the rooms and then theres lukee relaxing at the end of our tour !
At the end of the tour i asked him if there were any pictures of the staff from the maiden voyage and he asked why i told him my grandad worked on the ship and he was really interested and it was as if he knew this was a special day, and when we went back to the rest of the group he announced what i just told him and everyone clapped! I didnt know whether to laugh or cry!
After the tour we went to get our audio sets and started our self guided audio tour it was so so interesting and there were many things to read lots of it sad, a lot happy and a lot just general information it was more interesting then we ever imagined we were thoroughly enjoying ourselves :) we explored the ship from top to bottom going to different rooms and parts of the ship it was great.
....the two pics in the right colum at the bottom are of me looking at a model of the ship at where my grandads staff quaters would have been!
....exploring the ship :)We had a princess diana exhibition included in our tour so went to explore That in the late afternoon and that to was a great exhibition really interesting, lots of facts and newspaper clippings from her time in the royal family and info on the royal family before her, it was a shame we didnt have enough time to thorouhgly read everything .....next time!
...unfortunately we were not allowed to take pics in the exhibit so i just took the entrance pic! After this we were pretty tired and time was getting on! We did not want to go back late on that train! So we had a look at a few other things....the bridge, the captains quarters and then luke had a sit down in the main area as his back was hurting quite a lot by this point. I wanted to look at the isolation ward which in the war they used as a Place to care for the sick, however it was right at the back of the ship down two levels and then down again there was abaolutely no one there at all and no one on the two floors above me and as i started to look around i got a bit scared and ran back to luke! The ship is "haunted" and i wasnt prepared to get scared by some ghosts!! We had a look in the shops then prepared to leave. It was quite emotional leaving i didnt want to leave it was like i was being pulled back to spend more tine there & i wanted to stay a bit longer idealy the night, however we were lucky enough to visit for the day this time so it will just have to go on the list for next time!
The journey back took slightly longer at about 3 hours 15mins so about a hour longer then the way there, we were so tired we dozed the whole time and totally didnt even think about our surroundings, the train was quite busy and there was no problems :) i believe the reiviews we read from others about this journey were from Over reacters! I am not denying we was out of our comfort zone and anything could of happened we most certainly definately looked liked tourists so that made us vulnarable but what you really need for this sort of journey is common sense and to not be scared, its your right to ride the metro you paid they probably didnt! And avoiding doing something because others intimidate you is just plain stupid! We survived a journey in the ghetto and i would do it again! It was worth it. Maybe the others just had bad luck!
We absolutely loved our day on the ship more then we thoughht we would, i knew i would like it and find it interesting as i had a connection with it and luke was more then happy To go and was looking forward to it, but we were both surprised at how much we fell in love with it, I just loved every second There and luke loved it just as much he was the one suggesting that we must come back and next time stay the night! We enjoyed reading all about the stories from the family's that have ties with the ship and enjoyed reading all about the history but most of all i loved seeing where my grandad spent his happiest days before the war it was a special day and one to remember, what a great day what a great ship :) i think about my grandad all the time and still cannot believe he is not here to experience all the special things that happen in the family, i would have loved to have chatted to him about my travels and here about his. Everyone has different views on this but I believe everyone has a time to pass away, sometimes it isnt fair and sometimes people are taken from us when there not suppose to be and my grandad was definately not suppose to die when he did i absolutely believe that, maybe you will say its because i wish he was still here and i do but thats my opinion and everyone has there own opinion on the matter. At least now my grandad is reunited with my nan & they can watch all the family happenings from wherever they are :) i love them both very much and feel privileged to have spent time with both of them in my life & i will certainly be telling my children about there great grandad's travels and adventures!
Thank you for reading this tribute to my grandad, forever in my heart and thoughts.
Lovely Sarah xx
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