boating and broadway

today there was a homeschooling field trip aboard the schooner pioneer.

the boat was built in 1885 as a freighter to haul sand in delaware bay. she's unusual in that her hull is made of iron, not wood.

she has a volunteer crew that operates out of the south street seaport museum and gives tours to school groups and the public.

they sailed from pier 16 . .

around downtown manhattan . .

to the statue of liberty. 

she's just beautiful on the water, and the passengers get to help hoist the sails. one of the mates calls: "heave ho!" and the crew answers "two" or "six." chanda can't remember why. i'll have to ask my friend and fill this in.

members of the crew for this afternoon.

they also sailed beneath the brooklyn bridge which chanda and my friend found particularly exciting. it's just not a place that one often goes . . !

disembarking . . 

it was also such a beautiful and warm day to be out on the water.

after ballet class chanda and morgana had tickets to see an american in paris, the musical for which christopher wheeldon won a tony (best choreography).

we've seen many of his ballets including cinderella and alice in wonderland. chanda also really likes the actress who plays the lead character, lise, in the show, as she is a first artist with the royal ballet company. she returns this weekend to london after being on broadway for a year and m and c were happy to finally get tickets to see her.

set for the opening scene . . morgana loved the character of the pianist the best and thought the actor was very good.

here's leanne cope! they had fun getting autographs after the show. 

here's an interview with leanne and a backstage tour of the palace theatre.

getting ready for the theatre

morgana and greg went to see warhorse friday evening, September 7th. it was an 8 pm show. here chanda is letting morgana wear a special necklace she received from a friend in nutcracker last year. it did look very pretty with the dress. morgana enjoyed the show immensely. she had been wanting to see it for so long, and was ecstatic to finally be going.

on broadway

morgana and chanda have been talking for ages about waiting in line for $30 rush tickets to how to succeed in business without really trying. yesterday, i read that daniel radcliffe is leaving the show january 1st. i decided if they were ever going to see it, it should be sooner rather than later . . meaning before thanksgiving. and since i have two birthdays coming up next week, that translated into NOW! so chanda and i woke this morning and headed to 45th street to wait in line. we arrived at about 8:30 am.

by 10 am, when they opened the box office, we were positioned in the front third of the line. we bought two tickets in the second row, all the way on the side. the rush seats are partial view, but we figured it couldn't be too bad.

(she was reading coot club, by arthur ransome, inspired reading by carolyne in england who vacationed with her family just this summer on the infamous norfolk broads that mr. ransome writes about. it's probably chanda's second or third time reading it.)

back at home, chanda finished working on her greek root word definitions.

after schoolwork, chanda had chorus at third street music school. then we took the N train from union square to 42nd street, and walked to the theatre and met morgana. i took a picture of them before they went in and before i left for home. greg picked them up, and it's a good thing he did, as i wouldn't have been happy with the huge crowd they stood in while waiting for daniel radcliffe to leave the theatre. supposedly, chanda sat on morgana's shoulders trying to see over everyone and get an autograph, but daniel ran out so fast and into a waiting car that they missed him. ay yi yi. they did succeed in getting john laroquette's autograph (he plays biggley, the big boss of the show, for which he won a tony and a drama desk award). they said he looked very bored while signing! oh! fans and stars. it's like the i love lucy episodes when lucy and ricky are in hollywood! (oh, and they said the seats were great and the show was AMAZING!)