I'm a female tourist, so please rip me off

This past weekend, B and I scooted out of town for a long weekend in New York City with my family. Within an hour of landing in the city, I experienced my first I'm a female tourist so please rip me off moment.

Because it was my parents' first trip to the city, we decided that our main activity of the weekend would be riding the red double-decker buses. There are 4 routes: uptown, downtown, Brooklyn, and night tour. The lower-floor of the bus is enclosed, but the upper deck, exposed, is where the action is at. Being able to see the towering skyscrapers is key to feeling connected to the skyline and buildings that you see in movies and TV shows.

We didn't buy tickets ahead of time and were heading to the office to buy them when we encountered on the street a salesperson from what I thought was a rival company--the blue buses. The map in his brochure was different from the map I had printed from the red company's website, but when I expressed hesitation about buying tickets for a different tour company, he assured me that they were the same.

"The same?" I questioned. Yes, he declared. He said that the companies merged, and if you bought tickets for the blue bus, you could get on either the blue bus or the red bus.

Now I am not an expert on mergers and acquisitions, but I would think that having double buses--in different colors, with different names--would not be conducive to a successful merger or acquisition. There was something definitively fishy about his story.

Especially when his coworker came along and he waved him away with an expression that I can't quite define, but if I had to pretend to be on Lie to Me, I'd say it said, "Don't mess up my little scheme by telling this girl the truth."

Our little dialogue on the street, in the rain, went on for some time. As the buyer, you have the advantage of not having to give someone any money unless you're sure it's the right decision. Eventually, the sales person's friend joined the conversation, as did B, and our sales person admitted (while acting as if he had never made his false claims) that a ticket for the blue bus was good for the blue bus only.

In the end, we all bought tickets for the blue buses because their top decks were covered, and rain was predicted for the entire weekend. I think they might have overcharged us for the tickets. Rewarding a man (with an overpriced sale) who deliberately tried to mislead me leaves me with negative emotions, but [insert an appropriate cliche here; there are many options].

We took 3 of the tours, saving Brooklyn for another time. The top was covered but open in the front and back, and the low-40-degree temperatures combined with off-and-on sprinkles from a lingering Nor'easter inspired us to ride a single loop of each tour and then make way toward something warmer, preferably with hot drinks. Perhaps for the next visit, we'll make use of the hop-on, hop-off option.

So I had a somewhat negative experience with the agressive blue-bus salesperson. Transportation continued to be a source of difficulty throughout the trip.

When we weren't bussing (in a transportation sort of way, not in a kissing sort of way), cabs were the chosen mode of transportation, as they were the easiest method for transporting 6 people across wide swaths of the city in a short amount of time for a low cost. The ladies (my mother, sister, and I) rode in the first cab that B hailed, and the gentleman (B, my father, and my sister's bf) rode in the second cab.

One would think that the cab that left first would arrive first at the destination, and sometimes, we did win. However, for the majority of our cab rides, the ladies left first and arrived last, even when we had a significant head start.

Surely we were not unlucky enough to catch the slow cab drivers in town. No, more likely, the cab drivers saw three women and decided to take the leisurely route to our destination.

These experiences are disheartening. I can't say for certain that people thought they could scam us because we are woman, but that's the conclusion that I have come to. Sadly, no matter how confidant, prepared, or intelligent you are, sometimes people see that you're a woman and assume that you will buy what they're selling or not realize that they're trying to steal from you, in either small or larger ways.

Regardless of the negative tone of this post, we all had a fabulous time in New York and enjoyed our time immensely, even the overpriced transportation.