This immersion was so fun! I learned so much about ghosts, history, glass, and inclines.

Caroline Connors 4.8.11
Blog Immersion

The first day of our immersion, we left for the Corning Museum of Glass. We arrived in Corning and met with our tour guides. We went to a show on how glass is broken and why it breaks. I learned about stress in glass. Then, we went on a tour of the museum, which was very informational on the history of glass all around the world, and we even saw glass from outer space. We also saw a glass blowing show, which was so cool. We saw molten glass that was the same temperature as molten lava. 
We then started driving to Philadelphia. Once we got there, we went to a restaurant and then the hotel. The next day, we went on a tour of Philadelphia. We got to see Independence Hall (formerly, The Pennsylvania State House) where we saw the birthplace of America. There was so much rain on our tour. It’s always sunny in Philadelphia in my eye. 
After Philadelphia, we drove to Gettysburg. We checked into our hotel and went to a pizza place. After that, we walked to the Farnsworth House Inn. We split up into two groups and our group went in the attic first. In the attic, our tour guide told us ghost stories and gave us a brief history of Gettysburg and the Farnsworth House Inn. We learned about a ghost named Jeremy; a little boy that died in the inn who goes doing things such as pulling people’s hair and untying people’s shoes. People then started untying other’s shoes. After the attic, we went ghost hunting in the woods of Gettysburg. At first, it was scary, but we started telling jokes to the ghosts and we got used to it. It was pretty fun. We recorded ourselves asking the ghosts questions and then looked back at the tapes to seek out any unusual sounds or answers. We then went to the cellar of the Farnsworth House Inn. Another tour guide told us stories about different hauntings of the inn. I was pretty sure that I saw the eyes on a statue blink, so I told the guide. He said that others had said the same about the statue that was of Abraham Lincoln. Some of the stories were hilarious, but then, Mr. Powell said that he heard heavy breathing coming from no one in the room. He believed that it was a ghost, but we did not hear any breathing in the tapes when we listened to them later. 
After the Farnsworth Inn, we went to the hotel and went to bed. The next day, we went on a tour of the battlefield where the Battle of Gettysburg was fought. That tour was very interesting. There were monuments to climb on, and I took some pictures there. We learned that 51,000 people died in the battle and somewhere between 400-500 dead bodies are still lying under the field. That was very interesting to me. 
After Gettysburg, we went to a grand picket buffet and started heading towards West Virginia. This was about a four-hour bus ride.
Once in West Virginia, our bus driver found our restaurant and we ate dinner there. We then went to the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum. We broke up into four groups and started hunting. We first went to the Civil War ward, where we talked to a ghost named Jacob. He seemed nice, so we told him that he could follow us for the rest of our tour if he wanted to and he said that he wanted to by turning on a flashlight. We visited the children’s ward, the dance hall, the violent patient’s ward, and the section of the Asylum where the workers lived. We did basically the same thing that we did in the Civil War ward, but then we arrived at the last ward. The tour guide told us about a whistling ghost, so we started whistling to it. Then, we heard it while back at us! It was amazing! I’m not quite sure of an explanation for the sound we heard, other than it being a ghost. The Asylum was so cool, but kind of scary!
After the Asylum, we went back to our hotel and went to bed. We woke up the next morning and drove to the Big Mac museum. There is nothing I learned there that I feel like writing about. It was a big McDonald’s with a timeline. The manager of the McDonald’s told us to ask her a difficult question because she was so confident she could answer it. I was the first person to ask her a question and she did not, in fact, know the answer. I asked her who holds the world record for eating the most Big Macs.
We then went to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. There, we met our tour guide, Woody. He took us to a building at Pittsburgh State University. We saw the International Classrooms display. We saw classrooms that were supposed to represent Czech Republic, Italy, Germany, and we saw an old colonial-style house. The tour guide asked me to go into a closet where I found a secret door and light that lead to a secret room. This was supposed to be an authentic room where people would hide their wives and mothers, so that they did not get caught if people thought that they were witches. This was very interesting!
We then went to the Duquesne Incline. We rode it up to the top of the hill, went on a short tour that showed us how the incline works, saw the view of Pittsburgh, rode it down to the bottom, and got back on the bus. Our tour guide left and our bus headed back to Buffalo, New York. 
This immersion was so fun! I learned so much about ghosts, history, glass, and inclines.