A Treasure Hunt Among Islamic Art

Today was such a busy day!  Normally, we have music class on Tuesday afternoons, but  today we also had plans with Robert Ferrugia, mommy's friend from London. He's in the US this week and plans to visit his girlfriend Allyson in DC later. Today would be the only feasible day to meet him outside of his visit here on Thursday for dinner.  But I knew we also had to make sure we got to music class for the free trial drum lesson that Cameron was offering today.  Alex wouldn't want to miss that!

So, this morning, we took Metro North into Manhattan with Daddy.   We left him at Grand Central because we walked to Robert's hotel on Lexington Avenue.  Robert came down from his room at 9:30 and we set off for the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  They were holding a 10:30 "Clue Time" (we don't call it Storytime) for kids at the Nolen Library.   Built from the stories, they give out a Treasure Hunt list, asking for kids to find the things on the list in the given gallery.  Today's was of Indian gods.

Alex listens to a story about a mixed up chameleon.

Meanwhile, Robert visited the galleries on the Second Floor, knowing that Alex wouldn't be interested in things like photographs and portraits.  We met up again an hour later, when "Clue Time" had ended and they'd given us our list of treasures to find.  I also picked up a set of cards about the Islamic Art exhibit, so Alex now had two treasure hunts to complete!

While we waited for Robert to meet us, we toured the Met store on the Ground Floor. Alex saw toy knights and horses in armor.  He LOVED them! We played with them for a good 15 minutes.  When the saleswoman saw him dancing, she asked him if he had to go to the bathroom. He said "No" (we'd tried twice already), but I convinced him to try again.  That way, he could go home with a knight and horse!   We tried it again but Alex couldn't go.  I wanted him to have a knight and horse so badly.  I promised him that he could soon see real knights and horse armor.

When Robert met us again at 11:30, we headed straight for the Arms & Armor gallery.  Alex was LOVING it!! He was pulling Robert here, there and everywhere.  He dashed from one gallery to the next, from European to Asian armor to guns and then back again.  He couldn't make up his mind which gallery he liked better.  He knew that he loved the Equestrian Gallery, though.

We got him out of there only with the promise of even more cool stuff. Since Alex had been so interested in the Egyptian set of Playmobil (that he'd seen in the catalogue), I told him that we could see a real Sphinx and a real temple.  With some effort, we located the Egyptian Art gallery and visited the Temple of Dendur, which includes a real Sphinx statue.

Exiting the Temple of Dendur

By now, Mommy and Robert were pretty hungry.  We stopped for some lunch at the American Gallery cafe where Alex really surprised me by eating a pumpkin yogurt parfait with granola and cranberries.  He was really digging those cranberries!!
After lunch, it was time for Alex's treasure hunts to begin.  We located the Indian Art gallery to conduct the first one we'd received from the librarians.   Alex located every single one!!

Alex locates a statue of child saint Sambanchar, who holds a bowl.
At the library, we heard a story of a boy and a bowl.

At a statue of Ganesha, the Indian elephant head god.
The mixed up chameleon in the story wound up with an elephant head.

Alex wound up doing SO well with the concentrated Treasure Hunt (all in one gallery), I decided to make it interesting.  I added the cards I'd found for the Islamic Art hunt. This one was spread across several different galleries.   Don't you know that he found all but one of them? (And the one he didn't find may have been switched out from display.) 

Robert and Alex match a card to a mosaic niche.

Alex shows Robert that the lamp in the glass is the one on the card.
(The glass lamp was from the 13th century.)

 At the end of his Islamic Art Treasure Hunt, it was time for us to go. We had to catch a 2:37 train to Harrison in order to make it to music class.  We tried one more time to use the bathroom so that Alex could get his knight and horse.  No dice, but Alex was oddly OK about it.  He was more upset about leaving the museum.  (Since I bought a membership today, I will absolutely have to make sure he has a Treasure Hunt for every visit.  He loved them!)
We walked into Central Park briefly so that Robert could get a photo of the Alice in Wonderland statue.  We then exited to get on a Fifth Avenue bus, which we rode down to 46th Street.  By cutting through the Helmsley Walk, we were able to get to our track in plenty of time.  We said goodbye to Robert and said we'd see him on Thursday. 
What a cool day at the museum!
But the day isn't over yet...