1092 - The Highlands, Scottsdale

As I said earlier, leaving the windy weather behind, here we are in the land of cactus- Scottsdale!!



Its around 11:30 local time and we are driving from phoenix air port to the apartment which Daddy has already booked in advance. Not to forget inside the car it was pathetic (read it as "they forced me to sit in car seat again!!"), but those huge roads and beautifully designed and decorated fly-overs made me smile and enjoy that half an hour drive. Our driver uncle was a very nice person, inspite of me crying so much (for dumping into that car seat), he was concentrating on his driving and simultaneouly entertaining me with his newly aquired parenting skills. He was a proud father of 9 month old kid and was very kind to excuse me & my parents for my tantrums:)







Around 12 pm we reached our destination after a little bit of confusion on which turn to take. Well my daddy thought that after living for 1.5 yrs out here in past, he knows the roads well (even better than the driver uncle also!); but he was a bit wrong and after doing 2 rounds of the same square, we finally reached the apartment complex that we were looking for. It looks like a nice apartment complex with a small waterfall at the entrance of its office. That small water body was really nice and was adding coolness to the surprisingly not so hot weather of Scottsdale.




We were excited to get into our new house, but wait there were lot many formalities to be completed before we get the keys to our apartment. While daddy was trying to get everything in place with Amit uncles's help, Aai and me were at uncle's place playing with his son, Yajat's toys. Thanks to them I tasted a totally new food item - that is called as "Cheerios'!! And I must comment that by now I am a total fan of it and use my "Brahmastra" (loud cry:)) whenever I want it!! Finally by 4 o'clock we got into our apartment, a small house compared to our row house back in India but I am happy, very happy. Guess why? Yes, its simply because of the open space it has ... I am running all over to figure out how does this new apartment looks like. Starting from hall to kitchen to bedroom to store room to bathroom.













On the first day itself, daddy managed to get a nice bed for us (considering this is US, it was really a quickest setup one would have done). Thanks to the efforts he put in, we didn't get the chance to sleep on carpet on 1st day as well. And we had all the basic stuff like comforter (thick chaddar) , dining set and not to forget vegetable oil which made sure that Aai don't cook no-oil food. All this shopping was again done while I was sleeping and around 11 pm in the night! (That is one good thing of this otherwise lonely country that some shopping malls are open 24 * 7 and help people like us to settle down at the earliest.) This also means that first meal that we had in this apartment was without oil :( (Now one can understand why daddy went out in the night and got that oil from Walmart!!).






Next entire week went in setting up remaining basics like telephone, braodband. Yes in current times, telephone and broadband/internet have become part of basic needs; that is what my parents felt. Thanks to this world of connectivity, I could start talking to my aaji-aajoba and been able to talk to you all through this blog series.




Oh did I forget to mention the small open space we have in front? Well Aai-Daddy don't allow me to go there very often but whenever they allow, I just enjoy this place the most. You can see that on my face while I am trying to taste something from ground (yes, Aai-Daddy were saying a BIG NO to me, but why should I care!!:) )

On Saturday, Priti aunty and Srinivas uncle visited us. Abhi anna also had come. He got few of his toys; so sweet of him. Thank you Abhi anna. Even Srinivas uncle drove me safely to a near by shop called "Safeway". It was a nice big mall like Big Bazar in India. I enjoyed this first outing in Scottsdale. Aai was happy b'caz Priti aunty got few much needed things from Indian store like 'rava' and 'poha'.

By the time weekend was over, we had settled down a little bit. I am missing my grand parents, my home back in planet and our society and all my friends whom I used to meet everyday. Here we don't see anyone on the roads only:( It's just Aai and me at home waiting for Daddy to come back from office. But, one thing I am enjoying and that is 24*7 attention of Aai. It is just too good to play with her all the time. You might have heard Aai saying as I am troubling her a lot; but trust me I am not. I am just entertaining her with few things like pulling her nice hair every half an hour, biting her at least 5-6 times a day and last but not the least forcing her to not to cook while I am awake. Now, will you call this as trouble? I can hear your "no", thank you very much!!:)

That's all for now, I will come back with details of next few weeks and long pending travel blog soon.