#I’m a sucker for promotional food and merch

[sketchinfun]

Got the Star Wars Oreos! Ended up getting the Light Side Oreos and the “kyber crystal” sugar crystals in the creme was delicious!

[hils79]

Hockey Road Trip - Day 1

So, I'm back for my hockey road trip and I thought I'd do a quick write up for those who haven't seen the 800 pics I posted on Facebook :-p

I'll break this down into several posts because we saw and did A LOT on our 10 day trip

Flight into the US was pretty uneventful aside from the plane being super-hot and the food being terrible. Getting through customs and immigration was pretty straightforward because I still had a valid visa waiver from my last US trip so I got to go through with all the US citizens.

and met me at the airport and we listened to the Pens game on the way home (they lost). By the time we got back, had said hello to M's family and eaten some dinner it was 3am UK time and I was about ready to drop. Crashed pretty much straight away.

Woke up at 5:30am the next morning which is 10:30am UK time. I never did really get fully over the jetlag. I think the latest I woke up was 8am even on days where we had scheduled in a relaxed morning where we didn't have to rush to be anywhere.

Started the day with pancakes because you all know I am a sucker for American breakfast food.

SO GOOD!

And then I had them with maple syrup because apparently that's a thing in New England? I was told there's a big deal about Vermont maple syrup vs Canadian maple syrup. My Canadian friends deny this is a thing. Whatever, though, it was nice :D

We started the day with a trip to Mystic Acquarium. Because when you're preparing to embark on a trip to see human Penguins you have to go and look at actual penguins first :D

I love aquariums and the one in Mystic was small but nice. As well as penguins they had Beluga Whales which I had never seen before. I'm a bit wary about animals being kept in captivity so I generally only go to aquariums that promote conservation and animal care. Mystic is apparently one of the leaders in Beluga research and care and the whales seemed happy. Certainly didn't upset me the way Pittsburgh Zoo did when I went there in 2015.

Penguins are always adorable

Just proof that we did see actual fish in the aquarium too :D

And of course we got a souvenir photo

After lunch we headed for the first hockey game of our trip. An NWHL game Boston vs Connecticut. I was rooting for Boston even though we were in Connecticut for the game, because Boston has a player called Hilary Knight and of course I'm going to root for the team that has a player who has the same first name and same initials as me

Luckily for me happened to have a Hilary Knight shirt that she'd decided not to wear so she loaned it to me for the game :D

I have to say that now I can compare it to the AHL and NHL games I went to I am really shocked and quite horrified at how unfunded the NWHL is in comparison. They were playing in this small community/practice rink which had netting around it instead of glass. At one point a puck left the rink and nearly hit a toddler who was sitting just in front of me.

I'd seen stuff on Twitter about how the NWHL was struggling. There's only 4 teams in the league and each team (I think) has at least one or two Olympic team members on it. I guess I knew how misogynistic the sporting world is but it's a smack to the face seeing it first hand. So if you're at all interested in hockey I'd say do what you can to support women's hockey. From what I saw it really needs it. I just wish I was in a position to go to more games :( I did buy some merch even though I was rooting for the other team just to give my support.

It was a fairly slow paced game. Boston won (yay) and shut out Connecticut so that was fun and as far as first hockey games go I definitely enjoyed it.

After the game the Connecticut players came out and signed autographs for anyone who wanted them. I'd bought a poster so I got it signed. They were all so lovely and thanked everyone for coming. So, really, support women's hockey if you can.

We then went to Cheesecake Factory because I had been telling how much I love it and how sad I was that we don't have it in the UK. There was quite a long wait because it was a Sunday evening but handily there was a Barnes & Noble just across the street

Now, prepare for the most shocking news of the entire trip. I went into a book shop and I DIDN'T BUY ANYTHING! OMG!

The food, as always, was amazing. And as usual I had to take most of the cheesecake home because I was too full. It's probably good we don't have it in the UK, really. I would be dead within a year

By the time we got back from Cheesecake Factory we were full and sleepy so we pretty much crashed after that</lj-cut>

This entry was originally posted at http://hils.dreamwidth.org/4346698.html.