M is for Museums

 NYC is full of awesome museums. You can find a pretty comprehensive list here if you want to know about all of them, but I'm going to mention a couple of my favorites.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art

1000 Fifth Avenue
New York, New York 10028

The Met is definitely my favorite museum, though it may be just a personal preference to art. You can easily spend hours wandering around this giant museum and not get bored. Don't miss some amazing Van Goghs and Monets, as well as The Temple of Dendur (a 2000 year old temple that used to stand on the Nile River).

American Museum of Natural History

Central Park West at 79th Street

New York, NY 10024

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There are two reasons why I love this museum. One, the life sized blue whale in the Milstein Hall of Ocean Life. Two, the African Elephants. Besides that, they always have awesome exhibitions going on, plus there's the planetarium that I have yet to visit (it's on my to do list!).

Queens Museum of Art

New York City Building

Flushing Meadows Corona Park

Queens, NY 11368

My aunt and me at the Panorama

Now I'll be completely honest with you...I was not super impressed with this museum as a whole. However, the trip out there was completely worth it for 3 reasons: the Panorama, the fact that it's in Flushing Meadows Park, and the gift shop. The Panorama is a built-to-scale model of NYC - all 5 boroughs. It was built for the 1964 World's Fair and is truly breathtaking at first sight. I was stunned at the size of the thing and all of the intricate details. I was able to find my apartment and the building in which I work! The gift shop had a lot of adorable little trinkets, as well as fun World's Fair mementos.

Flushing Meadows Park was once the site of the World Fair and is home to the Unisphere and Arthur Ashe Stadium.

The best part about all 3 of the museums I've listed? They're all by donation only!! Yes they'll all have signs that make it look like you have to pay $20, but nope. Just walk up and say "2 tickets for $1 apiece please" or whatever you choose to pay. I know people who only pay a quarter. It's great!