Museum Hopper

i went on a speed trip to the met with a friend from college. in 30 minutes, we saw most of the new turner exhibit, degas, monet, picasso, renoir, van gogh and ancient egyptian art work. again, i don't think there is a museum that you can see that much in 30 minutes and have probably only seen about 5% of the museum if that. times visited: at least 6 time spent in museum: 30 minutes (speed trip) overall: A

i went to the south street seaport museum during the week one day with one of my guy friends while he was visiting new york city. he likes big wood boats. we went into the museum first on fulton street. then, we had to move to the boats at the south street seaport to go on the actual boats. one of the boats was closed although there was no mention of this anywhere at the main building. we then moved to the 2nd building. i think this campus approach was slightly confusing. the first building had an interesting exhibit on whaling . we didn't spend too much time in the museums. the boat was really nice. you sort of felt like you were actually on the water since the boat was docked at shore. they did a great job telling you the history of the boat. i think the museum would have more impact if the two indoor portions were combined. times visited: 1 time spent in museum: 1 1/2 hrs overall: B

i went to the natural history museum with my roommate and a guy friend who was in from out of town. we went the fourth of july weekend and i have never seen a museum more crowded. there literally was a line out the door to get in and a line to get into the cafeteria. that being said, obviously, the museum was really loud (although it's definitely not a quiet museum to begin with) and quite crowded. again i was reminded of how much i dislike that this museum charges a pretty high premium to get into its special exhibits. as an adult, it cost $15 to get in. To get into the special exhibits, tack another $11 onto that entrance cost. that's pretty steep! to give you an idea, the met charges $20 to get in, but doesn't charge to enter the special exhibits (that i've seen at least). we visited the dinosaurs, biodiversity hall, and the section about the earth (like fault lines, the formation of the earth, etc). times visited: 3 time spent in the museum: 2 hrs overall:

i went on to the ellis island museum as the last stop on the statue of liberty ellis island tour. i'd have to say this was probably the best part of the trip. the museum is surprisingly expansive. i think we almost missed the majority of the museum by not going upstairs. i didn't think it was clearly marked that there was more to the museum than the big exhibit (although not really enough to make a whole museum) on the first floor. the guts of the museum are in this offshoots on the main "welcoming hall" where the immigrants would go through, answer questions and were examined for health. you really have to walk far (past basically unmarked doors) to get to them. the guts of the museum is pretty cool. a quick summary of the different sections that i remember: a demographics section: who came from where and to where, when, why, how. who in terms of age, gender, race, ethnicity. i found my great grandfather (who got our last name changed at ellis island because he had

i went on the statue of liberty and ellis island tour with sam chan the last weekend he was in town. we were also joined by his wife, my roommate and two other male friends. so, a crew of 6 of us. we bought tickets about 2 weeks in advance. i would highly recommend this (especially on weekends) since we saved an estimated 1 (or more) hour in line. we purchased tickets from the internet . when figuring out logistics for our reservation, the website was very unhelpful. it is not very descriptive about where to go to get on the boat, when to get there, etc. if you want to go up into the statue of liberty, i'd recommend buying the tickets at least a month in advance. it doesn't cost extra, but only a limited number are available. we left from nyc and got off at the 4-5 bowling green stop. there were people dressed in statue of liberty costumes leading the way. our reservations were at noon, but i am not sure that the specific time really mattered. i think we could have shown