Quite the Sugar-Rush

The Met!

I ascended from my comfortable cloud of a bed at 8 AM this morning. I went down in front of the dining hall to meet my cohort and use the subway to travel to Lucerne Hotel to meet Ms. Thrift. We had a quick breakfast at our favorite spot "Nice Matin". My cohort and I all ended up trying something different, and it was probably for the better. Ms. Thrift claimed that her French Toast was better than the Belgian waffle we had previously, which was incredibly delicious, so that's truly saying something. After filling up our tummies with the tastiest of New York cuisine, we headed to the marvelous Metropolitan Museum of Art.

The museum was unlike anything I had ever seen before. There was an endless line of paintings, artifacts, and sculptures; if I was an art major I'm sure I would've gone crazy in there. But even as someone with little experience/talent for art, I still believed that the Met was remarkable.

A sample of the beautiful artwork

To be completely honest with you, before entering the museum I thought we'd only spend 3 hours in there without anything else to do. However, after walking through the first exhibitions, I soon realized that my pre-assumption was horribly incorrect. I felt like I had seen at least 200 pieces of artwork in the matter of 2 hours, ranging from Pablo Picasso to Monet to Claes Oldenburg. One thing I found rather intriguing about this Classical art is whenever they painted the form of a woman, they painted her rather realistically. I never saw a single woman portrayed with the "Barbie" figure with a completely flat stomach or extreme curviness: they were represented truthfully and completely realistically, and I really appreciate that. There was also an exhibit on Greek and Roman Architecture, and I got to see vases that were photographed in my history textbooks. Seeing a photograph or an artifact in a picture is so different from seeing it in real life. You actually get to see the way the light glistens on its edges, the extra effort the artist put into the painting to made the lines look heavy, or see the depth of a flower vase from Ancient Greece. Another exhibit we were able to walk through was the colonial houses exhibit, where I saw a variety of living room furniture formerly belonging to high-class individuals. I really enjoyed this exhibit, as it really gave me a true insight to how Colonial people decorated their homes. After the American exhibit, we visited the Greek and Roman center. This is personally my favorite exhibit; there were so many statues representing the human form and movement, and I found it to be absolutely astounding. 

Keyboard with pearl keys!

After our extensive walk through the Met, we ate dinner at this tasty restaurant called "Sarafina". Despite its three flights of stairs to get to the dining place, the venue was beautiful and the food was delicious. (But then again what place in New York isn't?)

Same vase I've seen in my history class textbook!

After eating our delicious meal, we went back to Columbia via taxi. However, we hit a bump in the road and the car halted out of nowhere. For some reason, the car wouldn't start and the trunk kept opening during the journey. Our cab driver apologized and said that we could not proceed any further. It wasn't so bad though since we were only a mere 16 blocks away from Columbia. The way back was pretty crazy since my cohort was experiencing a "sugar rush", so we were much more hyper than how we usually are. I just remember laughing so much that I started to cry, which is something that rarely happens. I honestly love them and Ms. Thrift so much. I truly feel like we've developed a small family, and I know that we've got each other's backs in any situation.

Delicious mozzarella pizza shared by Deborah and I

 When we finally returned back to Columbia, we knew it was the special time of the night when we had to blog about our wonderful days. We all met up at Mark and Deborah's building and blogged in their peaceful and classy lobby. Today was so jam-packed with an abundance of art and new memories!  Next up for tomorrow: Coney Island!