Maybe History isn't Always a Mystery

Our first week of being at Columbia has ended and the cohort is already familiar with New York! We headed straight to Ms. Thrift's hotel to get breakfast and head over to Central Park. The park was a lot larger than I thought. There was a reservoir, bridges, tons of grassy areas, and people from all over the world. We took the scenic route and walked for a while to see all the animals and trees. The park was so peaceful and relaxing to walk in. It was fairly close to the Metropolitan Museum of Art too. 

The whole cohort on the bridge! 

Going into the museum, we found out that Columbia students get in free! We just flashed our IDs and dived into the exhibits. Our first(and my favorite) exhibit was the Egyptian one. There was a variety of jewelry, pottery, sarcophagi, and parts of old buildings. They even had a part of an old temple! I liked that all of the Egyptian items were so intricate and colorful. The history behind all of the items was really interesting too. Since Egyptians believed in afterlife, they would bury treasures along with the bodies of royalty. Other Egyptians took advantage of this and stole the items. I'm not sure how long we were in there, but I think it was around 45 minutes of an hour that we were in that one exhibit. 

 We spent another three hours or so looking at the Asian, fashion, modern art, American, African, arms and armor, music, and Greek areas. No matter how much further we walked, there would always be another staircase, door, or other opening to more parts of the museum. I would say that we only got to see about half of the museum today. I liked that the museum was designed to match the themes of the exhibits. All of the collections were really extensive too! When I went to the Asian gallery, I learned so much about my own culture. It showed that I wasn't very knowledgeable about Chinese history, but I was glad to learn more about it. And in the fashion gallery, I saw that a lot of the styles that were popular back then are still seen today. I wouldn't say that the clothes look like they could be worn on a daily basis, but I could imagine a lot of celebrities wearing those dresses on the red carpet. I also recognized a few of the pieces and artists in the modern arts section because my Spanish teacher, Senora, went over a lot Spanish artists in class. Instead of seeing these pictures over a projector, I got to see the actual pieces. Joan Miro was one of the prominent artists in the exhibit. Our last thirty minute consisted of roaming around the gift shop. 

A collection of porcelain teapots 

Vines and Olive Trees by Joan Miro

Old clarinets

Lastly, I went back to my dorm and met up with my hall mates. We decided to go to Amsterdam Tapas, a little restaurant right off of campus. I ordered crab and avocado napoleon and crispy plantains with garlic sauce as a side. All of the girls were really friendly and the conversations continually flowed throughout dinner. At the beginning, we were all kind of on our phones until someone suggested we all place our phones in the middle of the table. No one was allowed to text her check their notifications, so we were able to be more engaged with each other. It was interesting to eat out with this new group of people and the food was great too! For dessert, we went to get frozen yogurt.  I love that New York has been full of so many interesting places and people. Our second week of class starts tomorrow, so goodbye until tomorrow night! 

Cassie, Sammy, Ann, and I at Pinkberry