The East Coast Adventure, part IV
Written 8/24/08, 4:45pm EDT
New York is like one of those experiments where they put mice in a box and give them plenty of food and water but no more space until they get so overcrowded they start eating their young, except that New Yorkers have cars and know cusswords.
On my dad's recommendation, one of our first touristy outings was to go to The Cloisters, a branch of the Metropolitan Museum ("Museeem") of Art built to house medieval art and architectural pieces. Despite its name, it was never actually a cloister, with monks and nuns and all that. It was built by John D. Rockefeller Jr in the 20's to hold an art collection he'd bought from a European collector.
As part of my Authentic Manhattan Experience(tm), we caught some traffic on the way in, even though it was late morning on a Friday. We figured we'd make it in time for the 1:00pm "Garden Tour", which turned out to be an excellent choice. Not only did they show instances of plants in the artwork they had, they described historical functions of the gardens and plants within them in medieval monasteries. The main cloister garden had a wide selection of plants, neatly labeled for variety and grouped by purpose (medicinal, culinary, aromatic, "magic", etc).
But, I think the best part of the tour, was that John, after seeing all those cool plants and things you could do with them, spontaneously said "Hey, we need a bigger piece of land." After months of trying to convince him of this... you never know what's going to hit somebody's motives just right.
New York is like one of those experiments where they put mice in a box and give them plenty of food and water but no more space until they get so overcrowded they start eating their young, except that New Yorkers have cars and know cusswords.
On my dad's recommendation, one of our first touristy outings was to go to The Cloisters, a branch of the Metropolitan Museum ("Museeem") of Art built to house medieval art and architectural pieces. Despite its name, it was never actually a cloister, with monks and nuns and all that. It was built by John D. Rockefeller Jr in the 20's to hold an art collection he'd bought from a European collector.
As part of my Authentic Manhattan Experience(tm), we caught some traffic on the way in, even though it was late morning on a Friday. We figured we'd make it in time for the 1:00pm "Garden Tour", which turned out to be an excellent choice. Not only did they show instances of plants in the artwork they had, they described historical functions of the gardens and plants within them in medieval monasteries. The main cloister garden had a wide selection of plants, neatly labeled for variety and grouped by purpose (medicinal, culinary, aromatic, "magic", etc).
But, I think the best part of the tour, was that John, after seeing all those cool plants and things you could do with them, spontaneously said "Hey, we need a bigger piece of land." After months of trying to convince him of this... you never know what's going to hit somebody's motives just right.
Labels: Stuff I do
posted by Amy at 11:08 PM
4 Comments:
Yayyy, Amyposts!
I know fucking jellyfish have got to fucking suck (fuck fuck fuck), but why is your description making me laugh out loud?
So did it turn out to be an allergy, then? Or is this the typical homosapien response to cnidarians?
Oops, that comment was meant for the last post, of course!
Although I'll comment on this one, too. :) Und zwar: Aren't museums/exhibits/other-opportunities-for-not-only-learning, but-also-synthesizing-and-applying-that-learning great? Bert never had any particular objection to archaeology, but he probably wouldn't have chosen to go into an archaeological museum on his own before I dragged him into the National one in Athens. And he was captivated! And has since suggested that we find more things like it in our own area. Yay.
Even better is when it doesn't even have to be a museum. Spending time with Dad in his garden last summer made me *itch* for my own little plot of land, too. Good thing I didn't see the exhibit on medieval herbery, slaver, slaver...
Nik, to your first post - it was an allergy; that was not a normal reaction. Interesting thing was, I was thinking about when before I'd taken Benedryl, since I don't believe I'm allergic to anything else, and it'd been like a week after I'd gotten back from Hawaii, and woken up itching. At the time I'd thought it was some weird jungle rash, maybe from a plant or something I bumped into diving, but... yeah, jellyfish again. The description we'd found online of jellyfish allergy said the reaction would come out a week or two later, and here I was getting a reaction 8 or 10 hours later... because I'd already been exposed. Grr, have to be more careful in the water - the reaction's probably only going to get worse.
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