Day 2: City Tour, Broadway Show and Talk Back

Today we went on a really great city tour with the All Star Dancers group with a fabulous, ex-Broadway actor, tour guide.  It was a 5 hour tour on a lovely air conditioned bus & we made several stops around the city. 

Here we are ready to go with our matching All Star Dancers tee shirts. 

Jordan happy to be in Central Park. 

Picture of some of the fellow All Star Dancers at the Alice in Wonderland fountain in the park. 

JoJo strikes a pose.

Lots of movies have been filmed at this particular location in the park.

911 Memorial. Very emotional to see & to hear our tour guides stories of what happened that day. He was a born & raised New Yorker who lost a number of friends who worked there. Very sad.

The names of all those who died surround the huge hole that is like an inverted fountain with water running down the sides. There are 2 of them that are the foot print of each of the twin towers. 

Here is a pear tree that was next to one of the twin towers that survived the devastation that day.  It was taken and nursed back to health for a few years and was replanted by the memorial.  

This is a memorial to all the fire fighters & police man that lost their lives that day. 

Their names are all inscribed along the bottom of this long memorial that runs along the side of a building across from where the Twin Towers stood. 

Here's our whole yellow group with parents as well. That is the Statue of Liberty in the background. They divided the dancers into color groups so the groups are smaller & more manageable. About 35 kids in each group. 

After our tour Jordan & I went to a great Vietnamese restaurant we found on Yelp. Ahhhh, a cold beverage was just what we needed after a long walk on this very hot, muggy day. 

We both had the Pho. So yummy!  

This evening we went with the group to see Aladdin. They got us center orchestra seats!  Sweet! 

The show was AWESOME!!  So funny, amazing costumes, flying magic carpet & lots of dancing. What more could you want?!  

After the show we got to stay in the theater & go up into the front rows for a Talk Back. A Talk Back is when the cast members come back out & do a Q&A session.  It was pretty cool. 

After the Talk Back we went outside the stage door & Jordan got 3 of the cast member's autographs (Jasmine, the Genie & Aladdin's buddy Omar). 

Here's the guy who played the Genie. He was soooooo good!

And Jasmine. 

And Omar signing Jordan's All Star Dancers autograph tee shirt.  

Jordan was thrilled!  Here she is with her autograph tee shirt that they gave her in the backpack they gave her when we first got here. 

And with her first autographs.

Tomorrow morning she gets to take some dance classes with some Broadway performers. Then tomorrow night we will go to another show & do another Talk Back. Jordan is hoping to get a lot more autographs!