Day 2 in NYC

Despite the plethora of activities available to tourists in NYC I went with just 3 goals in mind.  I wanted to see the Statue of Liberty, walk through Central Park and catch a Broadway show.  When I found out the price of the Broadway show (times six) I decided that 2 out of 3 wasn't so bad.  We had heard ways of getting cheap tickets but none of them seemed to be panning out for us.  After searching for the Walmart/Carrefour of ticket sails and finding nothing, we stumbled upon a curious line of people standing outside of the Gershwin Theatre where Wicked is now playing.  There were only around 20 people in the line and they seemed to have a secret that we wanted in on.  That's how we found out about ticket lotteries.  If you go to a theater 2 hours before the show starts you can put your name into a lottery and you might win a $30 ticket.  That's pretty good when the cheapest ticket we could find before that was over $100.   We wanted to take the kids to see Newsies so the next day we went  2 hours before it started and stuck our names in the drawing.  Only half of us needed to have our names drawn because each winner won 2 tickets.  We figured we'd be lucky to get 1 name called and then we would spring for the rest of the tickets or opt for standing room only which is offered at the Nederlander Theater where Newsies was playing.  Imagine our delight when all of our names were called and we ended up having to turn tickets away!  The poor girl that John was standing next to had been at it all week with no success.  People waiting for their names to be called seemed a little chagrined to hear our surname called over and over again.  While the seats were not awesome, the show was fabulous.  What a great story!  And the choreography was amazing.  We came out of the show feeling like we'd gotten away with something and wanting to do it again.

Sydney and Bryton standing in line with their fellow lottery winners

Look who we ran into on 42nd St. after the show!  John's man-crush, Justin Timberlake!

                                                 
After a short visit with non-responsive Justin we decided to try our luck at another lottery.  Because all of the matinees had just let out, the streets were no longer just super crowded.  They were super crowded times 10.  When we saw all of the people, we knew that our chances of getting into another show were slim to nil.  Still, we decided there was nothing to lose, so after a few photo ops we headed over to The Gershwin theater to try our luck at the Wicked lottery.

Can you believe it?  The first one picked!

Once again we heard groans from the crowd as our surname was called twice in a list of 10.  The stars must have been aligned just right because our odds of winning were much lower in this lottery than in the first.  The two boys ended up opting out so we ladies could go together.  John and I had seen it in Denver already but it was a new experience seeing it from front and center.  Sometimes the actors looked right at you.  And we could peer down into the orchestra pit at any given time during the show and watch the musicians whom I felt deserved some sympathy glances for their amazing talents but were no where near as exciting to watch.