Sis and I wanted to get some culture in during her trip to NYC, so we decided to visit a museum on one of the days. There are so many great ones to choose from in New York City, but we decided to visit the American Museum of Natural History. #dinosaurs
Also after two of our best meals in NYC, we had one of our worst. They couldn’t all be winners.
Here are photos from our visit to the American Museum of Natural History.
We were hoping to have a short line since I had taken a day off and we went on a week day. I’m not sure how long the lines typically are, but we definitely waited a good amount of time to get in.
We were trying to decide if we should get food before we went into the museum, but we got a late start to the day and had dance class later that evening. Feeling pressed for time, we decided to eat in the museum. We found a scathing review online that should have told us to change plans but we pressed on.
They had some grab and go sandwiches and salads in addition to a hot bar and some prepped hot food (pizza, hot dogs, chicken fingers, french fries, etc.). Nothing looked particularly appealing and it was all insanely priced to boot. I got chicken fingers, french fries, a small serving of hot BBQ pork, rice, and a salad for (I think) around $20. This was in the restaurant in the basement by the way. There were other places to eat in the building and I looked at them later out of desperation, but they didn’t look good to me either. While I’m thankful that I’ve gotten into clean eating over the years, it can make eating out with limited options more challenging.
Seriously, just take the time and go to Jacob’s Pickles (click for photos from our visit) or another great spot nearby. Sorry AMNH, I still love the rest of your facilities.
After lunch, we wandered around the museum a bit more before heading to the planetarium for our special event – Dark Matter. I don’t think I’d been in a planetarium since I was in high school. Maybe even middle. The presentation was really interesting, though it did lose me in a couple spots. I guess that’s what I get for focusing on math in school over science.
I was reminded about how I once wanted to be an astronaut when I was little. When I lived in Orlando, FL in the 80s, NASA was huge. I used to draw pictures of the space shuttles almost every day. It was a long time ago, but I may have stopped my space drawings after watching the Challenger disaster in the sky from the playground. Literally all of the kids stopped what they were doing, looked up, and saw everything in the sky. That was such a sad day. I’ll never forget it.
Another throwback from Orlando was this freeze-dried ice cream. I used to get this when my school did field trips to Seaworld. I flippin loved this stuff! I definitely went for the 3-for-whatever deal. And now that I’m blogging about this, I’m remembering that I have more of this to eat!
The dinosaur exhibit was probably my favorite from our visit.
The museum had a newly discovered dinosaur cast on display. The cast is 122 feet long and doesn’t even fit in the room as you can see from the photo above. Known as “The Titanosaur” for now, this dinosaur is so new, it hasn’t officially been named.
These next displays may be tied with my favorite (dinosaurs). These 3D displays looked so realistic, it felt like you were transported to the various animals’ natural habitats if you stood close enough. The colors, attention to detail, settings, and materials were stunning to see in person. The pictures really flatten out the displays, but they were so cool to walk up to, and look at from various angles.
I noticed a bunch of people laying under this gigantic whale. My paranoid side thought, what if the whale falls?
Anywho, I was curious if they were seeing something special by laying down, so I went down to check out the scene. I didn’t see anything, though. Maybe I missed it? But it was pretty peaceful and relaxing in the room. I probably could have taken a nap there.
But we had more exhibits to see!
This manatee also made me think about my days growing up in Florida. We used to visit fresh springs that had areas where you could swim with manatees. I never did it, but they were said to be very gentle and cool to see in real life.
We wrapped up our museum visit, went to a dance class, and then headed to West Village for dinner at a local restaurant. Don’t I look happy with this umbrella? This is like…10 minutes before the skies absolutely opened up on us and drenched us while we were walking towards a delicious chicken dinner. Like the rain was blowing at us where the umbrella couldn’t protect us. And the water was so thick on the ground that our shoes were soaked.
The rain didn’t let up until after we made it to the restaurant, but we made it safe, sound, and hungry. More on our delicious dinner experience next time!
More NYC Blog Posts
Here are some more posts from my sister’s visit:
- NYC Dim Sum, Boba Guys, and Phantom of the Opera
- Jacob’s Pickles and Coconut Smoothies
- Spicy Symphony and Tasty Hand-Pulled Noodles NYC
- Our NYC workouts together
And click here to view my other NYC blog posts
Thanks for visiting!