Last week, I decided to pick up another book to read, in addition to the five other books I’m in the middle of (I’m not joking and will list them out if you request it).  This book has been on my mind for a really long time actually and I hadn’t read it since I was in elementary school.  It is “From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler,” which in my opinion, is a terrible name, but a fantastic book by E.L. Konigsburg about two children from Connecticut who run away to NYC and live in the Metropolitan Museum of Art for a week.  It was always a childhood thought of mine how cool it would be to live in the grocery store and I guess a museum would be a lot more classy, but also a lot more scary and with fewer bags of double-stuffed Oreos to consume.

At the time this story takes place, it was still free to get into the Met.  Now, the recommended donation is up to $25.  Children under 12 can still get in for free, so Claudia and Jamie would have gotten in alright.  The children keep their violin and trumpet cases in an urn and a sarcophagus that still remain in the museum.  The bed they choose to sleep in and the fountain in which they bathe are no longer there – maybe this really did happen and the museum decided it should get rid of these things so that others would not want to move in.  Maybe they could use the fountain outside the museum if they want to move back in.

Claudia and Jamie follow different tour groups around while they are there so they can learn about the Egyptians and the Italian Renaissance which is exactly what I would do if I lived there.  I’ve actually thought that if I were ever to switch careers or go back to school and find myself with summers off or things they call spring and winter breaks that it would be cool to pick a few galleries a day and go through the entire museum.  Claudia and Jamie left after a week so they did not get to go through the whole museum, but they did a good job while they were there.

My favorite quote which of course still stands true to this day:

“If you think of doing something in New York City, you can be certain that at least two thousand other people have that same thought.  And of the two thousand who do, about one thousand will be standing in line waiting to do it.”

xx