Why I Love the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Last week, I mentioned that I wanted to make this a regular thing - a sort of column about travel and my favorite places. The majority of those will be museums, and generally art museums at that, and I figured where better to start than one of my favorite museums in the world? And since this all came about with talk of New York City, it's only fitting to start with the Met (Metropolitan Museum of Art). In this post, I'm only talking about the main museum, not the Cloisters as well. I will cover them in a later post.

If you're easily overwhelmed, the Met is not a good place to go without a plan. It would take ages to see everything. It's the largest art museum in the US and in the top for size around the world, at around two million square feet. The facade actually doesn't do the intimidating size justice; it merely makes it look big. However, once you accept that one day is simply not enough time to see everything and select what you do want to see, it's a bit more manageable. This is easily a museum where you could arrive when it opened, leave when it closed, and still feel like you needed several more visits to explore in depth.

New York in Another Light

When Crafty wrote her post about New York, it was strange for me. I don't know how to experience the world the way other people do, because I only know my own experiences. However, she references being afraid of cities and that's just something I don't know. I have never been afraid of cities. I'm terrified of people and extremely shy, but cities? They're just centralized hubs of culture, so what's to be scared of?!

Now, to be fair, I've traveled extensively, but this has always been my attitude. In college, I was really active in the music industry, as well as in nonprofits and activist causes. So I ended up spending a lot of time in New York. It's only a few hours away and everything was based there - or Boston, but Boston isn't big. And I'd spent many weekends in Boston growing up. But it never bothered me being in New York, and this was well before the gentrification started and Disney took over Times Square. Perhaps it was the ignorance of youth, but I found nothing terrifying about roaming the city alone. Now I look back and think I was really stupid, and my parents would be less than thrilled to know about the strangers' lofts I found myself in or the fact that I was too fearless to consider that maybe it was a bad idea to stroll through the Bowery by myself at 2 AM, but I'm here.

Little Crafty in a Big City

Just before Christmas, my daughter's Girl Scouts troop started planning a trip to New York City. The girls have been working on their anti-bullying and drama badges so they were going to a workshop, followed by seeing Matilda on Broadway. My daughter begged me to go with them on the bus, but didn't care if I went to see the show, so in an effort to save money, I decided to take the day to explore the city instead. 

Escape Monthly Review: March 2015 (Australia)

I was actually really enjoying Escape Monthly until this box. They were a bit on the expensive side, but I felt like I was getting a lot in the boxes and the value was there. In addition, I had found the items to be useful and very similar to the kinds of things I would buy when traveling. So when they announced Australia as their destination for March, I was thrilled! This is one of the places I have not been that I really would like to visit. I don't, however, feel like I experienced it at all through this box.

For starters, I was pretty disappointed that they normally send travel guides but for the one place I may actually use it, they sent a book about living abroad. I have no plans to live abroad and if I did, it wouldn't be somewhere I have not even visited. Why would I get a travel guide to Portland and not to Australia? This doesn't make a lot of sense. 

Escape Monthly Review: February 2015 (Nashville)

I was so impressed with Escape Monthly last month and couldn't wait for this box. I think it's really all about personal preference with a box like this, because I like food. However, if you're looking for something special or particular to a location, rather than items from local artisans, you may end up not enjoying it. I did, however. A lot!

All of Escape Monthly's boxes come with a foldout brochure for an info card. It looks like the kind of travel brochure you get in hotel lobbies on vacation and I love that added touch. You also get a travel guide to each location. Although this is probably a hit or miss for most people, since if you have no intention of visiting the area it ends up just being useless, I think it's nice to learn more about each area. I will especially love this for areas I either plan to visit soon or ones I know well.

Try the World Paris Box Review

I have to admit I'm confused. I signed up for Try the World back in December, and the deal was that I would get the Paris Box and gift card, as well as start my subscription with their Venice Box. However, clearly something got lost in transmission, because they didn't send me anything, didn't know I wanted the box, and basically had no idea I even had an account. So after a nightmare with customer service, I got my money back and was done with them. 

Needless to say, I was therefore surprised when I got an email with tracking info on my Paris Box. It's been almost two months, and I never got Venice and ended up canceling. So why were they sending me anything? To confuse matters even more, lately Try the World has been favoriting my posts on Twitter. I thought we had clearly had a breakup, but they don't seem to know we did.

I'm all for second chances, and I might have tried again down the line if it looked like they got things together. However, I witnessed something unacceptable yesterday. Several customers had posted complaints on their Facebook wall. A couple hours later, they were gone. Try the World sends endless messages promoting themselves and talking about how Huffington Post loves them, yet silences paying customers with legitimate concerns. One woman has waited three months for shipment and can't get a reply via email. Another received broken and expired items. It is not ethical or reasonable to present your business so falsely.

Anyway, I did get the box out of the blue, so here's what was in it and what I thought. 

Little Miss Crafty talks about Little Passports

When Little Miss Boxy first started telling me about subscription boxes, I did a little research myself. The first company actually that I stumbled upon was Little Passports. Little Passports is a subscription company that helps your children learn about the US, as well as other countries, in a monthly, six-month, or twelve-month format.

One of the things that stood out to me were the options that Little Passports offers. As a mom of three children, whose ages vary from three to nine, I sometimes struggle to decide which option to pick for other subscription boxes. Little Passports offers three different boxes you can choose from!