Sunday, November 13, 2011

Islamic art at the Met

Alla and I were eager to see the new Islamic art wing recently installed at the Metropolitan Museum in New York. We tried to book a room but couldn’t find any good enough deals, so we decided to go down just for a day. This turned out to be a pretty good idea.

We started on the 6:30 a.m. Lucky Star bus, from Chinatown Boston to Chinatown New York. We caught up on our sleep during the first part of the ride, and then we enjoyed the fall colors as we rolled through Connecticut. It’s a beautiful time of year to pass through Connecticut, since the lawns still look juicy and green while the trees sport their red and yellow autumn leaves. Encountering no serious traffic, we reached New York in four hours and got to the Museum at 11:11 a.m. on 11/11/2011.

Off to an excellent start, we showed our MFA membership cards (from Boston's Museum of Fine Art) when we went to buy our tickets to the Met. I’m not sure if they were supposed to give us a 100% discount, but that’s what we got. Grateful, we splurged on a delicious lunch at one of the Met's fancier restaurants when we finally took a break. First, however, we hurried straight to the new wing.

The Islamic Art wing includes two special installations, a Moroccan courtyard and a sitting room after the Ottoman style from Damascus, Syria. I especially liked these two installations, and went back to them a couple of times after I’d seen everything else.

Alla and I also enjoyed seeing lots of other installations at the Met. While she isn’t terribly fond of modern art, I am. So we gave ourselves a block of time to explore independently, and then we came back to discover that we’d each seen great stuff, much of which did not overlap.

When we finally decided that we’d both seen enough, we went back to Chinatown. Conveniently, we got there just before the 7:00 bus left for Boston and we still had food with us that we had originally intended to eat as a picnic lunch. Instead we had a picnic dinner on the bus and got home at a very comfortable hour. The whole trip flowed so well that we’re eager to do it again and see other parts of that museum or visit other museums.

To see more of our pictures, click here.

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