Well in normal SADJ fashion there were issues with the flight.....arriving in Dallas Fort Worth (due to weather. Yes some of you may ask why Texas when I'm off to Arizona...I like to fly American Airlines (to get Qantas points) so had to connect here on my way to Phoenix. Crazy I know.
Went into the lounge in Dallas where I had a couple of interesting comments said to me - "Will you get home tonight?" (Due to the weather and major delays), when they heard me speak "you must have come off an international flight" (they were surprised when I said is NYC classified as international), "you sound so posh" (then they tried to repeat what I said in a British accent). I had to giggle. Clearly they don't see many Kiwis in Texas.
I sat next to a guy (who's in the air force) on the flight to Phoenix and nearly died at a couple of his questions - where is NZ? (Ok this I'm semi ok with, thank goodness for world maps in the airlines magazine!) then what language do you speak there? I wanted to request a seat change :-)
As we were coming into land the pilot did his normal talk....welcome ra ra ra and casually added its 109 degrees. All the locals were like 'its normal, hot as hell'. Now bear in mind its after 9pm at night.
Natalie, Vanessa and Jonathan picked me up from the airport which was great! I nearly fell over walking outside! It definitely was hot. Back to their house where I had a phone interview with a lady in Tokyo. More about this later on.
Phoenix is full of cactus, scattered around the place. Of course I have photos. Something interesting is that they only grow one inch per year....scary to think how long some of them have been around for.
Wednesday (4th of July) started early, the time difference wasn't being kind to me to sleep. We spent all morning inside just chilling and catching up. The afternoon was spent in/by the pool which was so relaxing! I found it interesting when you got out of the water you got cold. Granted this didn't stay long! Very strange when it was 117 (47.2).
We did the typical July 4th celebration - bbq, then headed into the city (I'm assuming) to watch the fireworks. Nothing like 110++ degrees standing outside watching the longest ever fireworks!!!!! I was thinking we were going for the world record.
Thursday the girls went to the mall (far to hot to do anything outside!) in Scottsdale. We saw a movie, Knocked Up, had lunch then I had an hour full body massage. It was pure bliss! Natalie got a pedicure. That night we chilled at home.
Friday the girls drove to Sedona, which is around one and half hours north of Phoenix. Sedona is one of the prettiest locations in Arizona and I think the world. The views driving in were beautiful., red rock everywhere. We stopped at the world famous village of Tlaquepaque, which has galleries, restaurants, gift shops etc, for lunch. Unfortunately we got the most unfriendly, rude and hypocritical waiter. Funny thing was the table next to us was getting amazing and friendly 5 star service from the same guy. Interesting how these things happen.
Late afternoon we did a jeep tour from Sedona up to the rim which is 7500 feet above sea level. As you can probably imagine the views were out of this world, and the temperature dropped about 30 degrees from Phoenix which we all loved! Unfortunately there was a lot of sand, smalls rocks, trees etc that ended up in the windowless jeep and all through out hair!
We learnt some interesting things about the red rock - the reason its red is because millions of years ago iron was deposited in the rock, and the red is the iron rusting.
The drive home was as beautiful as the way there, and if not more due to the sun setting.
Saturday I felt was the hottest day I've had since being here. We went to the mall (the car park was absolutely full!) for lunch and to stay cool. Driving around we only saw one (crazy) person outside. In the afternoon we chilled by the pool.
That night Natalie and I went out for drinks and dinner. The barman thought I was from Boston :-) and while he was trying to take a photo of us another barman came up and stayed kissing our hands, rather strange!
Sunday (my last day :-( ) was spent relaxing in the air conditioning in the morning and being in the swimming pool in the afternoon. I took an overnight flight back to NYC arriving at the wonderful hour of 5.40am. I sat next to a mother, baby and child so you can imagine the amount of sleep I didn't get!!
Arizona is definitely a great state and I would love to return to see more of it. Hopefully my photos do it justice!
Hope this finds everyone well, happy and keeping cool or warm (depending on where in the world you are.) I have no trips planned next which is a little scary.
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