Sweet girls waiting in line to get tickets at the Metropolitan Museum of Art!
Kyla wanted to see the Egyptian temple, so that's where we headed first. Past all sorts of cool Egyptian mummies & stuff, of course.
This was the glass wall she was standing in front of (outside) before. They have it set up to look like the Nile, near where it was found, largely buried in the mud. They dug it up, and it was actually a gift from Egypt to us (not plundered), and here it sits.
Pretty cool, the 'real deal' hieroglyphics. You could sort of step inside of it, although Kyla said she was disappointed you couldn't walk all the way through.
From there we just started walking. My goodness, I cannot even tell you how beyond massive this place is. It was like my huge Art History college textbook was right there in real life, plus. Like to the point where it was really overwhelming to me even. It just kept going and going and going......
Kyla was excited to see a Native American, and even more excited she knew who it was (Hiawatha).
The signage and maps they handed out were pretty much useless; they had sort of tried I guess, I have no idea how they would have or could have labeled it better, but the terms were so broad, the place was just so big, I just can't emphasize that enough, that it was beyond crazy. We had to ask directions several times to get anywhere. We headed for the Medieval section next, since that was another area Kyla knew about. The intricacies of the armor was amazing, I cannot first of all wearing it for any length of time at all, second of all wearing it riding a horse and trying to defend my life, and third of all the time that it must take to make something like that, years I would imagine.
Super cool. This was so neat in real life, to see all the details.....
Kyla loved this saddle, top right.
This was the last royal armor made, for a 5 year old, don't quote me on this, but I believe it was for one of the Louis. The girls danced around for a while in here. Quite the atmosphere for it, ha!
More statues.....
I loved the one of the Mom & the baby, her face...I had to crop it to make it rated "G" for the blog though, ha! As Rachel told Audrie, maybe she just got done breastfeeding her baby :) Fountains, tile work.....just so overwhelming.
The girls liked this lady; basically a rich man's wife died, and he was grief-stricken so he hired an artist to make this for her place in the cemetary, and there is one in the museum also. Stained glass...they had everything here!
Realizing that you could live here for a week and still not even see half of it, we started heading towards the really, really big name painters, European Impressionists & stuff.
The girls did a great job at looking at stuff still, even though it was major sensory overload!
LOVE this one, the girls studying a Rembrandt.
This one looked like Rachel with her two little blonde girls!
We were all getting pretty tired & worn out at this point; this was the one day that we just nearly hit the wall while we were out. So, Kyla took a little break to learn by osmosis, ha!
One of the things I love about seeing these works in real life is seeing the scale; in a book, even a great reproduction of the painting that shows good detail, all of them are about the same size, they have to fit onto the page & they scale them all about the same. However, as you can see, some of the paintings are actually massive, wall size, while some, like this, one of my very favorites, are actually quite small. I love this one though & was glad we stumbled across it.
And we found the Degas room!
Monet & his waterlilies....
Love this one too. Rachel is up looking at it, Audrie & Kyla are on the cushy seat thing in the middle checking it out.
Love this picture, one of Van Gogh's self portraits, probably the most famous one? And another of his in the background. I know he was pretty crazy, it's really quite sad, but I love his art, the brighter & bolder the better.
We rounded a corner about this point & there were Sue & Anna! We were heading towards each other sort of, but I really thought we'd never find them & would have to meet outside. I could not believe it when there they were! Bob & Amanda were waiting in the lobby, and we were all exhausted & hungry, so we headed out. It was hard to just walk right by all of this super famous, most of it super fabulous stuff without even really stopping to look, it seemed like a shame, but you can only do so much! We tried to peek over our shoulders when we could to take it all in at least!
Bundled back up to go out! You had to pay for coat check, and I actually would have gladly, except the line was massive, a couple of hundred people at least long, so I carried our coats around, wearing mine & carrying Kyla's, plus my backpack, so I got pretty warm too......
All together again!
Although I only pulled it out a couple of times to use on the trip, I had read Fodor's NYC 2012 pretty literally cover to cover at home. This was one of the times I pulled it out, and they suggested a small neighborhood diner that was close to the museum. It was perfect. Quiet, I felt like I was in a tiny quiet Cheers or something...wood paneling, small bar, little wooden booths with hooks to hang our coats on, etc. They pushed a table up to a booth & we all got to sit together even. The girls did great, I didn't hear much out of them, I was on the end. What fun!!
I ordered Lamb Gyros, and then ordered a cup of Manhatten Clam Chowder after Bob did & I saw that it wasn't the creamy white clam chowder I was used too. Apparently that's New England style, and this more tomatoey kind is Manhatten. It basically tasted like vegetable beef soup or stew to me, only with crab instead of the beef. It was good, but for "clam chowder" I prefer the other kind. The gyros were great too! I gave Kyla a piece of the lamb & she loved it too.
Kyla got her camera out & the girls were taking pictures of each other, telling jokes (a running thing the whole trip between Anna, Amanda, and Kyla...and trivia as well; Bob started asking analogy/math/general knowledge questions to the girls while we were waiting somewhere early on in the trip, and Kyla loved it; anytime we stopped pretty literally even to wait to cross the street she begged Bob for more questions. And he always came up with more!) They had a pretty extensive & varied menu, Kyla leaned over & asked if she could get cheese blintzes and I said sure, so she did. I had to look up just now exactly what they were, I didn't try one. She said that they were 'fine' but not her absolute favorite, that they tasted a bit "plain" without the applesauce on them. I guess they're traditionally Jewish, sort of like a crepe, and had ricotta or some other type of soft cheese inside.
We parted ways here, and actually took a taxi, we were worn out & had a decent walk back to the subway, in the dark, through Central Park, so the taxi sounded amazing :) The girls had one in no time, we hardly had time to say bye to Bob & Sue they got one so quickly, and off we went. We drove through Harlem for quite a while too, so that was interesting, more so than the underground subway :)
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