NYC Brother and Car Hunt
Picked up my brother from NYC this morning. Also, been trying to figure out what to get for a car. Should I spend less money or more? You get what you pay for…
Woke up bright and early this morning. (Hell it might have still been dark). Left at 7:00 AM with my father to go pick up my brother from Pace. He just finished his freshman year.
Sounds like his freshman year was pretty normal (as opposed to mine, which was boring). All the normal partying, friends, late nights, girls, etc. Only thing is Pace is about a block away from the WTC. not exactly an easy thing to go through for anyone. I’m sad that my brother had to go through it.
When we were heading into the city I was reliving my horror from WPI and looking where the towers used to stand. I relived the anguish and fear as I watched the towers collapse and looked for Pace in the TV clips. I can’t say that there is anything that has ever made me happier (or maybe it’s more relieved) than to hear from my mother that Russell had called and he was ok.
He seems to be handling things ok now though. He’s looking for an apartment for next year—right next to the WTC. We walked by on our way from Pace to check out the apartments. There is truely a gap, in more than just the skyline and one city block.
The apartments are pretty nice. They can get a pretty good deal on them (price-wise) as they’ve depreciated since 9/11 and the City of New York is offering a grant to try and get people to move in. I, cynically, figure that he might be moving into the safest part of NYC.
On our way back from the apartments as we passed the WTC there was a group of high school kids walking towards the WTC. It was probably their first trip to the City. I could only think, “If they had only seen them standing.”
So. I’ve been doing some car research. Good sites: Edmunds and YaHoo both have a ton of useful information. CarBuyingTips a good read and some useful information if you’ve never bought a car before.
Basically, if you put all the research I did into a matrix and do some funky math. The GTI is tops. The Focus is number two. So I’m looking into the two of them. My father owns a Focus ZTS and we’re both like’n it. But, I needed to test drive the GTI. So on the way back from NYC we stopped off at a local VW dealer and gave a 1.8T 5A a spin.
After the test drive my mind was pretty much made up. The GTI rocks! It’s got power and class. Acceleration is quick, the tiptronic transmision was made for people like me (who don’t know how to drive standard but want more control) and everything about the car is well made. One difference from the Focus that I really noticed was that the GTI has much less road noise.
Now I just need to find one with the options I want and the right price.