I'm All Caught Up On Gay Hockey Smut, So Lesbian Hockey Smut is Obviously Next

The Long Game by Rachel Reid
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The Long Game represents, or perhaps is a reflection of, or maybe just came at the right time for me to find the similarity with my own disappointment at falling out of love with men’s professional hockey. I’ve complained over and over again throughout this series that I don’t get what the big deal is about dating your “rival,” that I don’t understand why Ilya and Shane, if nothing else, didn’t at least actively rewrite the myth of their rivalry (it would have been so easy, considering that they’re not actually rivals off the ice!), and that I don’t agree with their assumption that in the universe in which they live, they simply have to stay closeted until retirement. And so in this book, we finally get the big moment in which everything that I’ve been complaining about will be resolved, and I get to see the ultimate plan that will make everything I didn’t understand or agree with make sense.

And… huh.

So, okay. On the one hand, The Long Game does clarify a few things, mainly how impossible it would have been for Shane to come out before this, what with his black and white, catastrophic thinking. He’s very autism-coded, and explicitly orthorexic, and has a few other characteristics that weren’t as clearly depicted in Heated Rivalry that do make me see how he’d choose this closeted life for himself, and for Ilya by default. But then that just leads me to the dead-end that perhaps they’re not as well-matched a couple as they’d like to believe, because Ilya so very clearly needs to be out, deserves a vast found family and support system, and is suffering in this self-imposed isolation of their secret. Add to that the fact that both men are palpably miserable when they have to play their “we’re rivals on and off the ice” roles, and this depiction starts to make it seem like they should part from each other with love.

But that’s obviously not where the book wants to go with their relationship, which I guess leads to this forced outing, since letting them come out on their own terms isn’t a very dramatic conclusion to this angsty and dramatic state of being. I don’t like it for them, but whatever.

I just hate that everything has to be as black and white as Shane’s internal monologue! We’ve got to get Shane onto the Centaurs with Ilya, but he can’t just choose Ilya even though he loves his team--nope, he’s got to get completely emotionally destroyed by people he thought were his friends, and betrayed by a team he’s always been devoted to. It’s as bad as that time that I was so excited one morning to watch the Men’s USA hockey team win Gold, and then they immediately managed to perform toxic masculinity so passionately that by the evening I was no longer a fan of the NHL. It’s fine, though, because the PWHL is even better.

Along those same lines, that’s kind of why I’m not very excited to hear that Reid is working on another Ilya/Shane book next. I know they got their happy ending and almost all of our favorite queer men in hockey are now on the same team so at some point we’ve got to have a book in which Gay Hockey Wins the Stanley Cup, but I dunno. Even with that happy ending and the queer hockey revolution to look forward to, that forced outing and team betrayal have just left a bad taste in my mouth, and I’d rather have a reset, or at least a palate cleanse first. What I really wish is that Reid would write a women’s professional hockey book or two. There are so many adventures she could write about a fledgling professional sports league, so many queer stories to tell in which getting outed doesn’t have to be a plot point, and it would be so restful to have fun reading about hockey and romance in a profession in which toxic masculinity can take a backseat for a change.

Actually… that surely already exists, right? I mean, romances between people and dinosaurs exist--OBVIOUSLY PWHL-adjacent romances exist! Off to research queer women’s hockey romances!

A special shout-out just for the audiobook: I love that when Ilya speaks to his therapist his accent disappears and he talks just like a regular bro. Because of course he doesn’t have a Russian accent while he’s literally speaking Russian, but also? He’s just a guy! We are a world away from Kip’s speech-impedimented Brooklyn accent that the series’ previous narrator subjected us to, and I am SO happy about it.

Game Changer Reviews:

1. Game Changer, or, the Captain America AU hockey fanfic one
2. Heated Rivalry, or, the best one
3. Tough Guy, or at least it's not the real NHL
4. Common Goal, or, I hate Kyle
5. Role Model, or, a bully meets a nice guy and they fall in love
6. The Long Game, or, this is actually really depressing but I guess not as depressing as it could be *cough, cough* Brokeback Mountain *cough*

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I Read Role Model, And I Think I'm Not The Only Member Of The "I Hate The NHL Commissioner" Club!

Role Model by Rachel Reid
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I know I say this in every Game Changers book review, but my favorite thing about this book (and all the others!) is that the book's Big Bad is the toxic masculinity of the NHL.

It’s funny because it’s true!

That, ultimately, is what keeps me reading these queer hockey romances. I mean, yes, I love reading about hockey, and I appreciate that this series features proper hockey players with proper hockey storylines (if you want to know about the maaaaaany “hockey” romances I’ve read in which nobody ever so much as picks up a stick, I’m happy to share!). But I’m not really into romance, nor am I really into smut, so in many ways these books aren’t a natural fit.

But what they ARE is subversive, and that is a very natural fit!

In a very real way--the realest, since the TV show came out!--these books subvert the toxic masculinity fantasy that many of those in charge of hockey at every level cherish, and that they do their best to train up young hockey players to cherish, as well. It’s a violent sport, sure, but that doesn’t mean that we have to worship violence. But toxic masculinity worships violence, and to that end worships their idealized version of a violent man. He’s not soft. He’s not sensitive. He doesn’t emote. He doesn’t have or value depth. He doesn’t value women, or sexual or gender diversity. He does what he’s told by a bigger, stronger, or more powerful man. He thinks that by being big, strong, and powerful himself, he ought to get to do what he wants, too, without consequences from anyone not as big, strong, and powerful.

But in some also VERY real ways, hockey culture--at least fan culture--has moved beyond that, and it’s easy for hockey fans who don’t hold with this old-fashioned toxic masculinity to avoid seeing it. I personally had to have the Men’s USA Olympic Hockey Team pretty much throw their toxic masculinity in my own specific face before I finally gave up on the NHL (at least for this season! They can try again next season).

This is also what a lot of hockey romances do. Sure, there are male hockey players, and sure, they seem to be playing professionally, but in the world in which they live, there’s no dark undercurrent to give bad vibes to the romance.

But in Role Model? There are bad vibes. There’s a rapist. There are a lot of people, players and administration and fans, who cover up for or simply excuse the rapist. There are a lot of people who don’t believe the victims. There are bullies. There are assholes. The commissioner is THE Bad Guy. All Reid is missing is rapists on a junior hockey team, too, but hey--maybe she’ll do a YA series next!

Role Model is now an easy favorite side-by-side with Heated Rivalry. I like that Troy is kind of stupid--that’s realistic, too! I like that he’s a recovering bully who makes awkward apologies and often comes off like an asshole when he doesn’t mean to. I like that he tries hard, and it goes okay even though he’s stupid because he really is trying. I like that redeeming himself from being a bully involves standing up to his own bullies, because obviously bullied people bully people. I like the scene in which his coach tells Troy that once upon a time, he, too, complained about a bully within the league, and when Troy asks him what happened to that bully, the coach replies, “He’s in the Hall of Fame.”

The lesson in this book, and I think the lesson in the NHL this season, as well, is that our heroes aren’t necessarily good guys. We’d like them to be, and we act like they are, but we’re always one outcry, one cell phone video, one asshole joke from the Asshole in Chief away from being unpleasantly surprised.

I’m just gonna put this out there: the PWHL streams all their games free on YouTube in the USA, and the objectively best goalie in the world plays for the Boston Fleet.

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I Read Common Goal, And I May Have To Murder Kyle For My Own Peace Of Mind

This book was so boring that I genuinely forgot to review it, and then forgot that I'd forgotten! I was actually about to review Role Model (which is MUCH better!), but I wanted to revisit my reviews of the earlier books in the series first, to see if there were any commonalities. I was so confused about why I couldn't find my review for Common Goal, lol! 

Anyway, if you don't want spoilers for the most boring gay hockey smut that ever gay hockey smutted, then instead of continuing to read this, go read Common Goal for yourself. And then lie down for a looooong time, because Kyle is exhausting!

Common Goal by Rachel Reid
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The first thing you need to know is that the book’s blurb describes our hockey player, Eric, as a silver fox, but the book’s graphic shows him with a pretty standard brown flow. I don’t remember what his physical description in the actual book is, but in my head he’s somewhere in the middle. I guess we’ll have to wait for Season 2 of Heated Rivalry to see if we get any more opinions!

The second thing you need to know is that Eric’s house party scene gives me SO much second-hand anxiety! Kyle shows up, and this is totally fine and normal. But he shows up with a bunch of mocktail mixer crap that he wants to use to make Eric a custom mocktail. In Eric’s own kitchen. During a party Eric is trying to host. DUDE! Eric did not plan for you to be playing bartender when he was buying the ice for this party! He did not plan for this while he was cleaning his kitchen! And THEN Kyle actually makes this mocktail in, like, a secondary kitchen? So they’re the only people there and it’s not where the actual party is happening? I would just plain die and send myself to Hell if I thought I was somehow monopolizing the host of a house party in some separate room away from the rest of his party! Like, Kyle. ERIC IS TRYING TO HOST A PARTY. IT IS NOT UNREASONABLE TO THINK THAT HE MIGHT LIKE TO BE IN THE LOCATION OF HIS OWN LITERAL PARTY. THAT HE IS LITERALLY TRYING TO HOST.

So then Kyle makes Eric his custom mocktail, and okay, fine, it’s delicious. Whatever. But THEN he’s all, “Lmk when you want another and I’ll make you one!” So okay, let me get this straight. Eric now is obligated to drink a drink he didn’t know he was going to drink, and then he’s going to have to ASK Kyle to make him another. Like, Kyle didn’t even offer this as a whole party thing? He’s not just going to set himself up to make everyone the mocktail so it’s a proper activity? It’s… just for Eric? And Eric has to remember to ask for another, obviously, or Kyle might be disappointed that he didn’t love it. And he can’t let Kyle be disappointed--Kyle is a GUEST!!! Is asking for one more mocktail enough to be polite, or does he have to ask for a third? Three mocktails is kind of a lot of mocktails! I’m exhausted. This is exhausting behavior. Kyle is EXHAUSTING.

And as if that is not enough, you guys, at the end of the party, Kyle. Does. Not. Leave. Eric low-key, sideways hints at him to leave several times, and Kyle just. Does. Not. Eric genuinely does everything but TELL Kyle to leave, but Kyle absolutely will not leave! He ends up spending the night, he doesn’t leave so hard! I don’t even care that it all works out in the end and they’re in love--I am mortified by this behavior.

Eric’s apparently into it, though, so off we go! I don’t really feel one way or another about the age gap romance trope. However, I DO kind of feel a certain way about Kyle’s retelling of his very first age gap romance--are we supposed to feel like he’s focused on older men because he hasn’t processed the trauma of being groomed by his boss?!? Because that is a Whole Thing, if so. Not that I’m not there for it or anything! I was just surprised!

But ultimately, even though both Eric and Kyle profess to be interested specifically in an age gap romance, and both fantasize about it separately, they don’t really actualize any aspects of it in their actual romance. Eric fantasizes about “spoiling” Kyle, but he never really does. Kyle fantasizes about being “irresistable” to his older partner, such that they’d do anything to please him, but they never really act out this scenario together, either. Instead, they just kind of have normal--though excessive!--sex. They’re both pretty focused on edging, which honestly makes sense for Eric (less for Kyle), but otherwise they’re just a couple of normal dudes dating normal dudes.

The relationship angst is meant to come from both men secretly wanting to have a relationship, but neither man admitting it while they continue to act like friends with benefits. Maybe this is just me being unfamiliar with queer culture, but Bro. Is it really THAT hard to tell a sexual partner that you’ve caught feelings? Like, I get that it’s probably embarrassing and you’re upset that they might stop wanting to have sex with you, but Bro. Come on. Or was this maybe meant to be the relationship version of edging? That could be cool as a through-line, but I think we’d have needed some more hints at it for it to work.

I was surprised that none of this hidden turmoil really showed itself in the sex scenes. One of my favorite parts of Heated Rivalry is that you can see how Shane and Ilya are falling in love against their will by how they behave during their sex scenes, because although they both think they’re hiding it, they actually can’t. It’s cute and sweet and there would definitely have been room for it in this book, too. Like maybe they each simultaneously find themselves acting out that fantasy they’d both expressed, and then they have Big Feelings about it. Just… SOMETHING! If nothing else, it would have given them something to talk about!

I’ve felt like that about a couple of the books. Obviously Shane and Ilya have a ton to talk about, although another one of my favorite parts of Heated Rivalry is how it takes them about six years to realize it. Fabian and Ryan were kids together, so even though they have very different interests now that’s still plenty to build on. Troy and Harris work together. But I do not know what on earth Scott and Kip have to talk about (and that scene in which Kip is trying to talk to Scott about something he’s interested in and Scott shuts him down because he doesn’t care STILL pisses me off!), and I do not know what on earth Eric and Kyle have to talk about. Good thing that Eric and Scott are friends, and Kyle and Kip are friends. They can survive off of double dates!

Honestly, though? I give them eight months.

Game Changer Reviews:

1. Game Changer
2. Heated Rivalry
3. Tough Guy
4. Common Goal
5. Role Model (coming next week!)

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In Which Queer Fantasy Hockey Smut Is Way Better Than The Real Toxic Masculinity Of The Actual NHL

Not to be all gender essentialist or anything, but I swear to god there is nothing like a man for screwing up a good thing.

I have just come down from a blissful few weeks, an absolute fever dream of hockey fandom. I don't know if you're tuned into hockey media, but the Heated Rivalry TV show has had been AWESOME for hockey lovers! It genuinely turned actual hockey from a sport that people followed into a proper fandom. It just honestly felt so cheerful and wholesome, with my social media full of cute hockey fan edits and Capcuts and memes and craft projects and funny discussions. 

And then the Olympics started, and it got even better! We're talking all that, plus 2+ hockey games a day to watch, PLUS all the extra wholesome, cheerful cuteness that comes specifically from the Olympics. I subscribe to the admittedly idealized notion that the Olympics is meant to celebrate sportsmanship as much as athleticism, and it was really cool to see the PWHL and NHL players dispersed throughout the various countries' teams, as well as the USA and Canada teams consisting of pro players from all the different PWHL and NHL teams. 

It has to have been THE best time to have been a hockey fan.

And now it sucks, so thanks, Trump.

And like, I'm not stupid. I know the NHL has a huge toxic masculinity problem, that it's historically misogynistic and homophobic and racist. But I'd ABSOLUTELY thought that history was on my side, and that every year it was trending just a little more towards actual diversity and acceptance, towards You Can Play and Hockey is for Everyone, etc. Like, surely the NHL wants more fans--or at least their money--and if becoming more diverse and less toxic was clearly the key to that, then clearly they would jump on it. With this active fan culture of late, female-forward and diverse and queer and having a lot of fun, it was really feeling like we were on the cusp of some kind of revolution. 

But obviously we weren't, because the NHL and most of the players in it are actively rich boy right-wing misogynistic MAGA bullies who think it's funny to laugh at the expense of the USA Women's Hockey Team, who objectively did better than them in the Olympics, by the way, and then not apologize, and then act like people are overreacting when they're mad about it.

Whatever. They came out of the whole thing looking stupid, they clearly don't actually want me as a fan, or care about my little bit of fan-money I was spending on them, and now I'm gonna watch the PWHL instead.

My NHL dysphoria is so bad right now that if I'd written this review of Tough Guy last week, I'd probably have given it two stars, because it's not that good, but today? Ryan and Fabian are getting four stars from me, just for the pleasure they bring by living in a world in which there are multiple openly gay professional male hockey players. 

The fact that Fabian is portrayed as a kind of Violin Ed Sheeran and it's so corny? Don't care anymore. Love him.

The crazy height difference descriptions, including the time that Fabian and Ryan are dancing and we learn that Ryan's belt buckle is bumping into Fabian's RIB CAGE, and also I can't look it up because I listened to the audio version but I swear there's a time that Fabian STANDS ON A LITERAL CHAIR and is about Ryan's height? Completely realistic. No notes.

I did genuinely love the interesting way that this relationship threaded the needle between Game Changer's insta love and Heated Rivalry's eight-year situationship. Having Fabian and Ryan as childhood friends who'd lost contact did allow for some elements of insta love that got to feel realistic, because we know that they've done all that boring getting to know you work off-screen, and now we get to focus on how they build this emotional connection, the cute dates and waffle brunches with Fabian's friends, etc. I was not at all into the physical chemistry between Fabian and Ryan, but that's okay, I guess, because they're into each other.

I *was* pretty into the premise that Ryan is an enforcer, because the NHL doesn't have those anymore (John Scott did the BEST job at the 2016 All-Star Game, and also kinda caused the long-overdue dismantling of the enforcer position as a whole because the NHL was just that butthurt about how genuinely wonderful he was). I feel like the premise that Ryan hates being an enforcer is also earned (see also: John Scott), with his goal being the most heartwarming part of the book, but imo Fabian made waaaay too much out of watching Ryan's hockey fight highlight reel. Like, it's not a dogfight or cockfight or baby bunny fight or whatever--they're grown men! They're fine!

Also, mental note that when you've got a crush on an artist, the romantic thing to do is to PURCHASE all their music to binge. Ryan is too sweet to pirate music like everyone else, and I love that for him. Or he's just too rich, but whatever. I'll take it, as long as he's supporting small artists.

Random notes:

• My genuinely favorite part of the book is when Ryan refers to his body as "an old, weathered barn." It's evocative, and surprisingly poetic.
• My favorite character in this series so far is Wyatt. Love a backup goalie, especially one that logs a ton of volunteer hours!
• My current favorite part of all the non-Heated Rivalry books I've read in this series so far is when Ilya makes his Gay Fairy Hockey Godfather cameo. It's so random and funny, and honestly kind of out of character, but I don't care, because it's Ilya!

Predictions for future books:

• At some point, Shane and Ilya will collect the full set of queer male pro hockey players--plus Wyatt! And maybe Hayden!--for their hockey charity. 
• I've been spoiled a little bit for The Long Game, just enough that I don't have DIYing a Voyageurs jersey on my to-do list, and now that Wyatt is also a Centaur I think they should also collect all the queer male pro hockey players--other than Scott Hunter, I guess, who is currently being smug and perfect and happy in Common Goal--for Ottawa. It would be even better if Ryan came out of retirement, since it seems like he actually does like hockey when he gets to properly play, or he could coach and that might be even cuter.
• And then if they DO manage to collect all the queer male pro hockey players, obviously they must win the Cup!

In conclusion, I still want to DIY Shane's Team Canada sherpa, and a Boston Bears sweater with "Rosanov" on the back, but thank GAWD that I did not pull the trigger on the "Quinn Hughes Surrounded by Ghosts" cross-stitch pattern I was eyeing. I'm not saying I'm never watching NHL hockey again, because Sidney Crosby has yet to disappoint me, but that league as a whole is in my personal penalty box for at least the rest of this season while I develop my far more appropriate and non-problematic crush on Hilary Knight.

Go, Torrent!

Game Changer Reviews:

1. Game Changer
2. Heated Rivalry
3. Tough Guy
4. Common Goal (I'm reading this right now!)

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I Have Discovered Gay Hockey Smut

Heated Rivalry by Rachel Reid
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I apparently started reading in the wrong order, because I was actually supposed to read Game Changer first, but whatever.

I’m actually more mad that I’ve been loudly cheering for hockey and reading smut for YEARS, and nobody has loved me enough to tell me that this entire book series of genuine hockey smut--bonus points: GAY hockey smut!--even exists! I had to rely on TIKTOK to clue me in, so I guess my parasocial relationship with TikTok has officially reached the next level. Thank you, TikTok, for knowing what I like before I know it myself! I checked this out of the library as an audiobook, and spent much of December plopping myself down with a big armful of cross-stitching next to my husband as soon as he fired up his Playstation and turning this on "so we could listen together." At first he was mortified, but it didn't take long before he was as in the weeds as I was with Shane and Ilya, and now I'm very much looking forward to watching the TV series together. Breaking down those gender essentialist stereotypes one tropey romance at a time!

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My two favorite things about Heated Rivalry are that 1) it has a genuine plot, and isn’t just a bunch of sex scenes pasted together with mildly plotty paragraphs in between them, and 2) there is actual hockey contained within. Not, like, a ton of actual hockey, because even I understand that, given the extended timeframe of the book, full play-by-plays of every game our heroes played during that time would be too much (but if someone wanted to make some fan videos attempting it, I’d watch them!), but enough to flesh the characters out as actual hockey players, and enough to make the game of hockey an actual part of the book. Because my personal belief is that, if you’re reading a hockey romance, you want to read romance and YOU WANT TO READ HOCKEY, and I will never understand how a self-proclaimed hockey romance (*cough, cough* Icebreaker *cough*) can manage to have absolute zero hockey therein.

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Since I am now apparently one of the Old Ones, and have been known to regale my fourth-wave daughters with stories about the bad old days when everyone was in the closet and being queer felt so fraught, one of the things that interests me the most about Heated Rivalry is how, by choosing a setting of male professional sports, the book is able to harken back to those bad old days and the experience of feeling actively in danger simply because of one’s sexual identity. Like, yes, I know homophobia is still out there (though not really in the circles in which my own kids run, hence why I feel the need to regularly trauma dump some lived experience truth bombs on them), but only in male professional sports does it really feel Brokeback Mountain-level these days. So setting the book series in the world of the NHL is a great way to access those Brokeback Mountain-levels of angst again, albeit with, at least in Heated Rivalry, a happy-ish ending.

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And of course, since I’ve also been bitching about this issue for years, finding out that in Heated Rivalry the REAL Big Bad is the NHL itself is right up my alley. Bring back Pride jerseys, you buncha assholes! I swear the administration’s bullshit toxic masculinity is so out of touch with their fan base that it’s ridiculous. Like, they genuinely thought that their fans would overlook the fact that the Golden Knights’ entirely mid goalie is a rapist?!? Just the fact that there are no out NHL players should make the administration realize that something about its playing environment is very, very wrong and they ought to treat that like the mental health crisis that it surely is. But nope! We’ve apparently just got to be hockey fans as best we can while they actively act like they’re playing in 1950, not 2025.

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I did think that the book was making too big a meal out of the “rivalry” part of Heated Rivalry. Yes, you can easily convince me that the gay part is an issue, because hey, toxically masculine NHL, but the rivalry? Um, lots of players have good friends from different teams? How could they not, when players get traded so often? And when there are regular goodwill events like All-Star Weekend and the Olympics? I just didn’t buy it as an issue, and every time a character tried to act like it was an issue it fell flat for me. Shane and Ilya had all the reasons in the world to be best buddies right from the start, AND it would have made their years-long situationship soooo much easier. Like, why wouldn’t they be friends, as top young players and top draftees and with so much in common? If they couldn’t figure out how to make it happen before, then the All-Star Weekend during which they were finally on the same team should have been the time! They publicly realize that they actually get along great! They make no secret of exchanging numbers! Whenever they play each other ever afterwards, they make a point of chatting during warm-ups, during which the announcers will fall all over themselves to say, “That’s what sportsmanship is all about, y’all.” They could even do the cute thing where their teams start fighting and one of them skates over, grabs the other by the scruff of their jersey, and skates them away from the scrum. The fans LOVE that stuff! And then after the game, their teammates are all, “Hey, you coming out with us?”, and each of them replies, “Nah, I’m hanging with Shane/Ilya tonight,” and that’s that.

Anyway, now onto Game Changer!

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I Ate a Pineapple Pork Bun in New York City and I Think I Will Never Be The Same Again

If you thought that bad weather would keep the tourists inside, you would be wrong. We will see all the sights in New York City no matter how cold it is!

We got so turned around attempting to find the right subway line to get us to Brooklyn that we ended up near Rockefeller Plaza, so we figured that we might as well walk over and see if the tree was still up.

It was!

And then the big kid saw the line to get into FAO Schwartz and was all, "Toys?!? TOYS!!!", so somehow we ended up doing that, too.

Of course, as soon as we got into the store and she realized that it was essentially just a mass of wall-to-wall people she wanted to immediately bail, but I said, "Come on, we're already in. Might as well power through."

The first week in January is actually a terrible time to visit FAO Schwartz regardless of the crowds--they were so picked over from holiday shopping, I guess, that although all the shelves were full, they were full with just, like, one or two products per brand, basically. Great if you want a goat cheese Jellycat or a Schleich brachiosaurus painted to look like it works there (which, okay, is kind of cute...)--

--but I kind of wanted to look at *all* the Jellycats, you know? Not just 1,000 copies of the worst one.

Whatever. At least it was warm inside, and it turned out that the subway station we wanted was right near there, after all!

On to DUMBO!

Technically, all people actually wanted to do on this day was walk around Chinatown and eat stuff. But I tacked on first walking across the Brooklyn Bridge TO Chinatown because, come on, it's RIGHT THERE!, and then, well, I tacked on first finding that one perfect photo spot that everybody goes to in DUMBO because if you're at the Brooklyn Bridge, well, then... I mean come on, it's RIGHT THERE!

Just us and 1,000 other tourists seeing the sights!

If you look veeeery closely at the photo below, you can even see a tiny Statue of Liberty. We really saw everything on this trip!

There she is again! 

Walking across the Brooklyn Bridge probably isn't something I need to do again, although I would like to catch a sunrise there, but it was a super easy and pleasant walk that puts you right into an interesting part of Lower Manhattan, a short walk from Wall Street on one side and Chinatown on the other.

We chose Chinatown!

And yes, I did force us a few blocks out of our way just so I could embody that Lumineers song.

It is SO hard for me to narrow down all the places I want to see when I visit somewhere:

But we did our best!

We bought buns and milk tea from Mei Lai Wah--

--and I need to tell you that this pineapple pork bun is the best thing that I have ever eaten in my life:

How do they make that crunchy pineapple topping? It was super crunchy, but it wasn't super sweet so it's not sugar. It was SO good, and I am devastated that I'm not eating it again right now.

We had no organized plan for what little shops and restaurants from my map we actually hit and in what order, so we got a lot of sightseeing done simply by wandering back and forth and around and around doing and seeing everything in the most inefficient manner possible:

Jin Mei Dumplings, cash only and window service only, but you get 15 delicious dumplings for $5!!!

I didn't see a tenth of what I wanted to see by the time we absolutely had to head out, which is always the way, sigh, and I guess it leaves plenty of reasons to come back one day.

Another place I'm coming back to: Madison Square Garden, where I once again managed to score the absolute worst seats in the house!

This game ended up being kind of heartbreaking, because I had to watch Shesterkin get injured (and he's still not back!), and then go on to watch the Rangers flat-out lose to the Mammoth, but at least they scored a couple of points in the meantime--

Here's a spot that I haven't yet made it to even once: the Empire State Building! I just like to look at it from the outside and imagine King Kong climbing it:

Fun fact: the best part of our trip is yet to come!

P.S. Come find me over on my Facebook page, where I often talk about my adventures, experiments, misadventures, and yet more misadventures as I'm doing them!