The MoMA & The MET

Today was a dream day for me!  It worked out really good that the forecast called for sunshine on every day except for one, and since we knew it would rain all day we decided to hit some art museums.

We had a slow start this morning because we are so tired, but eventually we made it to a Halal Guys cart for an early lunch.  Eating is our absolute favorite part of traveling, and we have a list of places we want to eat at.  Halal Guys exceeded our expectations, it was so good!  We then grabbed some steamers and hot chocolates at Starbucks (it was pretty chilly outside) and headed down the street to the Museum of Modern Art.

The museum was amazing!  There were several floors of interesting and well thought out galleries.  My favorite of which included THE STARRY NIGHT.  Yes, my friends.  I was able to see the painting of my dreams.  We had seen Van Gogh's museum in Amsterdam, and now I have seen his Starry Night so basically my life is complete.  I stared at it for a while with watery eyes as the crowds pushed and shoved.  What a great moment.

Bailey was a happy guy too.  His favorite artist is Kline and we were able to see a few of his works!  I enjoyed Pollock and Picasso and overall we just had so much fun exploring this wonderful museum.

We then took a long walk to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, stopping for a very bad crepe on the way.  We also took the opportunity to take a picture of me by a very appropriate street sign (it says Madison St.).  The rain had stopped a little bit, but started up again right before walking into the MET.  What a cool building!

This is kind of cool - as their employee, Thanksgiving Point gave me a membership to the American Alliance of Museums which includes a little card with my name on it.  That little card got us both into the MoMA for free and me into the MET for free.  That saved us about $75 today!  Just a tip - membership with the American Alliance of Museums is actually pretty cheap and will quickly pay for itself if you're a museum fan.

We were absolutely overwhelmed by the MET.  We were advised to take it a little bit at a time, and that we would never get through it all unless we had multiple days to spend there.  Seemed like a challenge to us!  We took a long time in the wings that we found super interesting, for example, the Greek and Roman wing, the Egyptian wing, and the Asian wing.  Well, and the Contemporary art wing... we spent a lot of time in a lot of wings.  But some we just took a walk through, and I am proud to say that we got through it all!  We DEFINITELY could have spent longer there, and definitely would have liked to if we had more time, but by 8:30pm we were feeling pretty pooped.

Something really cool about the MET is that they tried to incorporate architecture into the exhibits, for example, in the Greek and Roman wing, they made it out to look like a Greek gallery complete with gorgeous columns, and in the Egyptian wing they had built a pyramid for you to walk through.  These structures really gave us context for what we were learning about and were a great way to immerse ourselves into the specific culture.  Artifacts and works of art were organized in each wing in a way that made sense, which is not always a given in every museum.  5 stars from this art student!

We so loved our time at the MET (just not the food, try to eat before or after you go if you can, or just don't eat at that restaurant in the American Wing) and the evening ended nicely on the top floor, where most of the visitors didn't make it.  We had many rooms to ourselves and sitting in front of Washington Crossing the Delaware (which is HUGE!) in peace was such an amazing experience.

Like I said, we got through it all but we definitely need to go back someday.  Do not miss the MET!

We were hoping to grab a street hot dog on our way out, but they were all packing up to go.  We had spent more time at the MET than anticipated!  We were so tired we stooped to the level of lame travelers and stopped at Taco Bell on our way back to Chinatown.  I am so excited about tomorrow's plans, but so ready for a night of sleep!