Well, after one day of driving around on freeways and shopping at nondescript malls, I'd say Phoenix is pretty much how I expected it. Admittedly, I haven't seen much yet - some touristy stuff in Scottsdale, a mall that I think was in Glendale, and a bunch of under construction suburbs around Litchfield Park.
But damn, people say Calgary is suburban.
On the way home, we drove pretty much through the centre of Phoenix, and if I didn't see the towers along that one corridor, I wouldn't even know I was anywhere near downtown. I never saw anything denser, just older.
The far out suburbs are pretty bizarre here too (thinking Litchfield Park). I mean, I know suburbs are supposed to be quiet and lifeless, but this is like some post-apocalyptic zombie flick. I'm used to not seeing people walking, but we walked to a restaurant for supper last night (about a 15 minute stroll), and I saw 4 or 5 cars and one person playing basketball.
Anyway, tomorrow my mom's meeting with some people from 8-4, and I was planning on walking from there (somewhere in Scottsdale) to downtown. However, it turns out that this "somewhere in Scottsdale" is at the very NE corner of 101, so that won't be happening.
So I've got some questions for anyone that knows the city - what the fuck should I do for 8 hours (tomorrow and the next day)? At some point I'll find a bus and go somewhere, but have no idea where/what to check out. Any suggestions?
...
Now on to the fun stuff: how awful it can be to travel with my mom and grandma. I came to Phoenix without sunglasses, so we went to a mall to get that one thing. As we walk in, both of them say "I'm not here to shop", yet, after I buy some shades (about 20 minutes) we walk back through some department store towards the car. They got distracted and looked through clothes for 2 hours, trying on pretty much everything in the store.
Later we found out that Grandma apparently can't tell the difference between a hispanic and black people, because we went to a Walgreens (again, only for one item, so why the hell do they need a fucking cart???), and there were several hispanic people inside. Grandma later said "we must be in a black part of town". She's a little (unknowingly, most of the time) racist, you know, like most old white people.
But my god, the worst part, by far, was driving around with them. My mom drove, and Grandma gave directions. I consider myself an expert navigator, but since I'm the only one who's never been here before, my opinion is worthless (even though I have a map in my hand). One more minute in that car with them bickering and I swear I was going to lose it.
Oh yeah,
everything is cheap as hell down here. Fast food, gas, golf balls, houses, and pretty much everything else I saw was so much cheaper than in Calgary.
So, in case you (Buckeye, or whoever else knows Phoenix) got bored of my post and missed it,
what should I see, where should I go for the next couple days?
Prev
Hybrid Mode