Brooklyn Heights
We went to the Brooklyn Bridge yesterday to check out the view. I’ve gotta say that once you’ve been over the Golden Gate in San Francisco then other bridges seem like fallen logs over a river. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still a great bridge, just not the best we’ve seen on this trip. Perhaps there’s a tip in there for anyone planning a United States bridge seeing tour…
Bridge Baby
The rare, "bridge wallaby"
Then I did something stupid… Remember a similar picture to the one below?
Gettin funky
Well, I went ahead and bought this bass with the idea that I would ship it back to Australia for a couple hundred bucks, saving over a thousand Aussie dollars in the process than if I bought it back home.
All well and good in theory yeah? Well the salesman was a pushy bastard ( yes Ron at Guitar Centre, Union Square I mean you ) and he assured us that it would only cost a couple hundred to send as he used to do it all the time until Guitar Centre changed their policy on shipping.
The deal was done, he put it into a box for us and we carted the thing a block around the corner to the shipping store only to find that it would cost $550 US. Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuudge!
We lugged it back to the guitar shop and explained the situation to the salesman, who consequently couldn’t really care less after he made the sale. However he quickly, when threatened with the possibility of a refund grabbed a phone book for us so we could try and find a sane shipping price. No go unfortunately, however we were able to get a refund without any problems.
In the end it’s probably for the best as the dollar slipped down to 80 cents the other day which really undoes all the benefits of the buy-n’-ship-home method. Oh Well.
Some people might think, ‘why not cart it on as carry on luggage’. Not really practical with one and a half months left of holiday including one month in busy, packed bullet train Japan.
I’m over New York now after that, bring on Washington D.C tomorrow!
Rob