Big Price, Big Expectations: You Don't Always Get What You Pay For

In my last post, I might have written that I would have another post on Monday, the 20th of June. Clearly that didn't happen. Lucky for you this blog doesn't cost you anything. Unlucky for me, this blog doesn't cost you anything.

While I was back east, my family and I visited the Mystic Aquarium. Seeing as how the aquarium is right on the shore (and the fact that each ticket was around $29), I had high hopes for what might have been inside. As the saying goes, always put your best foot forward, and that's exactly what Mystic Aquarium did:

Leading with their heavy hitters, the aquarium placed the whale tank directly inside the entrance. Needless to say the whales (there were three) were pretty cool. So how did the aquarium follow up? With this:

Yup, you got it, it's a frog. To be honest, it didn't get much better.

The next day we headed north up to Northampton, MA to do some sight-seeing. We visited the campus of Smith College, the largest of the Seven Sisters. As expected, the campus was beautiful. A scenic and calm waterway cut the area roughly in half. Crossing the foot bridge, we noticed a squirrel clinging to the edge of the concrete decking:

He moved around on the side of the bridge like a spider, until his grip gave out. At that point he fell, belly first, into the stream below. If he had started floating downstream I might have felt bad, but as it was he quickly climbed back up the bridge and scampered off into the woods.

On another part of the campus I noticed this graffiti:

I sure hope the artist's English teacher is for her. I'm no Slyvia Plath (who is, by the way, a Smith grad), but that is some horrible grammar. You would think for $53,460 a year even the freshwomen (yeah, I made that up, but I bet girls at Smith use something stupid like that to refer to themselves) would get some decent English training, as the clearly don't get much training in parking a motor vehicle:

On second thought, that horrible parking job might just be due to the driver being a woman versus any lack of training.

So, once again I visited a place that was expensive (luckily though I didn't have to pay tuition to walk to the campus) and in the end the product didn't impress as it should have.

Never fear though, as the day ended with a stop at the Northampton Brewery for a cold beer. I tried the Scuba Märzen (pronounced more like Mare-Tsen, not Mare-Zen) and completely enjoyed it:

Märzen, German for March Beer, is a lager that had its beginnings in Bavaria. The Scuba was caramel in color and had a delicious malty flavor - a great way to end the trip.

As we come to end of today's post, I must once again inform you of a leave of absence I will be taking. My wife and I recently moved into a new home and as such we have been busy, and will continue to be busy, getting completely moved in. I hope to be able to get back to regular posting next Monday with updates from the TdF.

Look on the bright side, whether I'm back on Monday or not, you aren't out any money.