The Nina

Today was an absolutely brilliant day, just beautiful, and certainly not typical for almost mid-November.

I worked at the bookstore this morning, doing story time, and I had no one show up. Not one little person. I can't say I'm all that surprised. We had all of three people in the store at the time. I can't say I blame anyone who stayed outside today. It was lovely out.

After my (mostly useless) sojourn at the bookstore, we came back home. We had been here for a matter of minutes when The Michael called and said he wanted to see The Nina. It's been in a local port for the last week or so, and our attempts to see it had been thwarted all week. So when The Michael asked if we wanted to meet him there, I immediately said, "YEAH!" and told the children to head to the car.

Skeeter had been at work all morning, and he pulled into the driveway as I was backing out, so was able to come along.

To quote The Michael, "Those cobblestones are pretty and historically accurate and all, but they're hell on the car." Yes they are. And walking too, I might add.



The one thing that hits you, right off, is how small the boat is. It's astonishingly small. I couldn't even see it as we walked toward the boats. It was dwarfed by the riverboat next to it.




Once you're on deck, it's really hard to imagine crossing the Atlantic on this vessel. Just sitting in the dock, it feels small. According to one of the crew, Columbus crossed the ocean with about 30 men. There were probably thirty people on the deck with us, and it felt incredibly crowded. I can only imagine that it was better on the voyage because the crewmen would have been purposeful, not milling about as we were.

My children were fascinated with the water and the various water-spying places on the boat.



Obviously, I was fascinated with the rigging, since I realized that I had taken loads of pictures of the various ropes.



The Nina website has a schedule of the ports it will visit. I highly recommend seeing it if it comes to your area!