Museum Hopper

it's been a while, but this visit to the detroit institute of arts has been in the works for a while!  i bought the tickets to the faberge: the rise and fall, the collection of the virginia museum of fine arts over a month ago!  i went to the exhibit with the man friend, jason, and my dad. i had seen the ads for this exhibit a few months ago and was excited to see what faberge was all about.  it was something that i feel like i have always known what it is (those very decorated easter eggs ), but had never seen in person.   we went at noon on a sunday arriving slightly before our entrance time.  i think we just beat the beginning of the rush!  i remembered how busy the rembrandt exhibit was last december, so i am happy we didn't wait until closer to the holiday season and we went earlier in the day this time! the museum first stepped us through the history of the house of faberge .  peter carl faberge, the founder's son, is really the owner who took the jewelry

last weekend, i headed down to the detroit institute of art !  the tri-county area recently passed a millage providing free admission to the county residents in exchange for a tax placed on each property.  i want to get in a habit of taking advantage of it, so i headed downtown before meeting up with some friends for brunch! i was unlucky and missed the vermeer exhibit.  i should have paid closer attention to the dates on that one!  i did end up seeing picasso and matisee: the DIA's prints and drawings .  the collection was interesting.  i liked seeing how it came together and how the purchases were made.  matisse 's crisp work in contrast with the elaborate abstraction of picasso 's was very much on display within this exhibit.  as expected, a collection of this size was donated by a single donor for each of the two artists.   matisse's bright colors with simplistic lines resonates with me.  i did enjoy seeing some of picasso's realistic artwork  as well, they h

for training, my new company was nice enough to put me up in chicago for the weekend to avoid the travel back and forth.  my boyfriend, jason, came to town and we decided to check out the field museum , a chicago classic.  it ended up working out perfectly since we met a friend in the south loop for lunch and went on a boat ride afterwards, which was docked outside navy pier.   jason and i were able to use our student IDs, which was great.  we ended up getting the pass that allowed us access to the whole permanent exhibit and one of the special exhibits.  we choose our special exhibit to be ghengis khan   who i was excited to learn more about since all i knew, i learned from the movie mulan .  we really enjoyed the museum.  we started out in the permanent exhibit about the egyptians .  this was definitely the most crowded and loudest part of the museum completely with running and screaming children. i also enjoyed learn about the tsavo lions  and the man-eater of mfuwe .  i had

about two weeks ago, i was in chicago for the kick-off training of my new job.  i ended up skipping the intro to excel training (smart move -- it was optional!) and headed up to lincoln park to the chicago history museum .  i had been once when i was in middle school with my mother and sister.  my wonderful friend, kelly, also had her wedding reception there last august, but unfortunately, i was unable to attend. i got there a little after 3:00.  the entrance is pretty easy to find although my cabbie wanted an actual street address. i really enjoyed the museum.  i first tackled the first floor including the dioramas and the very old "mystery" american flag.  the dioramas are some of the oldest part of the museum.  the story with the flag is that they really do not know the story of the flag!  it is not standard print or size, so they are trying to figure out where it is from and why it was created.  i then headed upstairs to where the main action is.  i spent the most t

i cannot believe it has only been about 10 days since i went to the milwaukee art museum .  i was in milwaukee with about thirty of my closest friends for a fun weekend!  i remember the first time i visited the museum, they had a degas sculpture exhibit; i took these lovely picture yes, the famous degas sculptur this time, i was very excited to see the posters of paris: toulouse-lautrec and his contemporaries .  i loved the exhibit (mam does do special exhibits very well)!  for the last ten years or so, i have noticed the parisian posters almost everywhere except in museums.  the first time i was aware of them was within my college dorm on friends' walls.  this exhibit clearly explained the appeal of them and how the parisians used them both as advertising and then later as art (reminding me of the andy warhol campbell soup can series).  the exhibit walked through the chronological rise and fall of the poster craze in paris.   i loved the information about how the pos

i went to greenfield village this weekend with my man friend, jason, and his college roommate, jon, his wife, and their two sons who are four and six.  the perfect crowd for greenfield village!  i love going with kids since it is so much fun to see their reactions to the houses, equipment and outfits. we went on a very hot sunday!  i do not feel like we were as adventurous as we might have been if this had not been the case.  it also slowed us down a bit... i was surprised at how much it was to go to greenfield village now and once we got inside, it did seem like we were a little more nickel and dime-ed than we had in the part.  jason remembered more of the activities being included with your admission and i do not remember a charge for the train, etc. (although that used to be included in the family pass [which it no longer is] so that may be why). we started out visiting the artisan village, which i really did not remember from when i went as a child.  it was really fascinati

this is a little late!  whoops!  i participated in the women's football academy at the university of michigan a few weeks ago.  i went with my future mother-in-law and sister-in-law!  we had so much fun!  part of the day was time to visit the schembechler hall football museum.  it is located in schembechler hall , but seems to have very limited hours.   if you have ever wondered where all the trophies and cups that the football team wins, schembechler hall is the answer.  they are all in there! 2012 sugar bowl trophy! yep, they have a placeholder for the trophy! i saw a heisman, the brown jug and numerous capital bowl trophies!   i really enjoyed it!  they had details as well about some of our more memorable players including president ford ! if it is open and you have a chance to go, i would definitely recommend it! time in museum: 30 minutes times visited: 2 overall: A-

eek!  the last post from my trip!  right before i left for my night at the airport hotel, i went to the deutsches museum .   it is definitely the largest "museum of technology and engineering."  direct quote from the guidebook: the museum is a "tour de force."  yep, and it was.  the museum is huge.  it was difficult to find things at time, similar to the met or the louvre.  this did take it to an extreme case though.  this picture is an example of what i cut through to get to the music section of the museum.  i tried to hit the highlights, which included galileo's workshop, alexander graham bell's telephone and a wright brothers' plane.  they did have great descriptions for most of the museum.  the range of stuff is incredible.  i do not have much to say since the collection is crazy.  i felt that it could have have been edited slightly, but the massive size is what the museum is somewhat known for.  i covered the following areas: - music - plane

while in munich, i decided to head to the schloss nymphenberg , which was a little outside downtown.  from the main train station, i needed to take a metro train and then a bus.  this palace was built in honor of future king's son's birth.  talk about a birthday present!  similar to the residenz , this building also was built in staged and continually added onto to make it what it is today. the walk to the main palace is quite grand.  it has a few canals and is surrounded by all of these pretty outbuildings.  the main entrance is in the middle between two staircases.  within the main entrance is where you can buy the admissions ticket.  i ended up buying the combination ticket , which got me entrance to everything, the main palace, and all of the park palaces.  my guidebook mistakenly mentions that the audio guide is free; it is no longer the case.  i was also slightly disappointed in the pamphlet.  it did not contain a map of the entire estate, which is sort of key, since th

as my friend and i were wandering through the city, we decided to check out the residenz , which was the former residence of the bavarian kings.  i cannot believe that it was originally built in the late 1300s.  it was definitely built in pieces though, which was obvious reviewing the layout of the building.   it took us about 20 minutes to find the entrance to the building leading us through many, many courtyards.  the entrance was very poorly labeled.  and no, this was not a case of us not understanding german!  by the time we found the entrance, it was 505.  we had to spend about 5 minutes trying to convince the guard to let us in.  they supposedly close entrance an hour early, since it closes at 6.  really?  wow.  that is something.  i understand closing admission a half hour early, but an hour early (and of course, they were closed the next day). the rooms are beautiful.  we were quite happy we begged to let us in.  the antiquarium was breathtaking.  i have never been to ve

the last stop on my painting list was the alte pinakothek .  i was lucky that my friend, patricia from school, decided she would join me at the museum.  the museum was pretty close to my hostel, so we just walked over from there.   the museum has a reduced admission price for sundays, which was awesome.  it was just a EUR to get in.  ironically, this was also the only museum where i was asked to show that i had paid about halfway through our visit!   they had a number of great paintings.  again, no descriptions of the art except on two paintings.  perhaps this is something is expected or the norm in germany.  i am not really sure since i only went to two art museums in germany.  patricia and i did have a difficult to find the "gems" (according to my guidebook) in the collection.  we did notice there was a lot of glare on the paintings.  at times, it was really difficult to see parts of the painting.  we also wished they had kept some of the original names like the pieta b

okay, last, but definitely not least, was my stop in munich, germany!  i decided to fly to munich since it ended up being cheaper, but it also gave me a full two days in munich!   on the first day, i was lucky enough to go to the  - alte pinakothek - residenz we also checked out the hofbrauhaus , the original one! then on monday, i covered some ground heading to the schloss nymphenberg seeing all of the outpost buildings as well.  i then headed to the deutsches museum, which is a large natural history museum.   four more posts to go!

my main reason for visiting hamburg was the hamburg kunsthalle .  the museum had 24 paintings on the masterful list of 1001 paintings!  pretty impressive!  that number puts it as the #6 museum on my list for quantity behind the likes of the louvre, uffizi, and natinoal gallery.  obviously, that made the museum a must visit on my trip! the museum has a slightly awkward layout since it has two main entrances, which were not connected (from what i could find) on the first floor, just the second floor.  the second floor was very well laid out and easy to navigate.  some of the rooms had the corresponding number on the door frame, which was helpful.  i wish all of them had it.   i am not 100% sure i saw it all, mostly unsure about paintings on the first floor. i loved these little creatures in the corner of a painting this landscape was beautiful this is a painting that my strategy professor showed us -- this is an mba student venturing out into the wide wide world degas