Lufthansa Welcome...

So yesterday marked the start of the weekend and our first rest day since arriving in Arizona. CTC provided us with a rental car for 1 week while we get our own car organised, similar to the situation in NZ. Obviously this is a massive truck as all cars are in America! This allowed us to get mobile, go to Walmart and a shopping mall and get a feeling for the place. One thing you cannot do without here is a car as everything is so spread out. Goodyear itself has a good selection of shops and restaurants but they are all laid out in a "retail park" kind of setting with miles between them. Even to get off the airfield would be around a 20 minute walk...  Not plausible in 100 degree heat as we had yesterday, and this is the colder season!

We have planned to buy a car from some of the Lufthansa guys that are leaving Phoenix in the next couple of weeks. This is pretty easy to do and better than buying a car from a complete stranger! You can pick up a pretty decent car out here for around $5000 with seven seats. Plus insurance which is pretty pricey for anyone under 25. I think the two guys from Lufthansa paid $1200 for 6 months between them, they are 22. The best way is to get an AZ drivers licence which brings the price down but I am not yet sure what this involves. When I do will post it.

There are about 55 Lufthansa cadets out here currently doing PPL practical training and last night they invited us for a BBQ to "welcome" us to the site. To be honest we expected the worst, some kind of initiation ceremony... but this didn't happen. They were a great bunch of guys, good to get to know them a bit better and they made us feel really welcome. A massive bucket of beer was brought to our table and amazing BBQ food provided so thanks to those guys. We will try to replicate their hospitality for the next CTC course to join us.

On the whole out here the atmosphere is so friendly. I cannot compare to NZ but one of the instructors says it is a very different atmosphere to clearways. Although there is us, German air force and Lufthansa cadets we all have a lot in common and seem to get on pretty well. Feels like home already. All the staff at the center are great and always want to have a chat. The food in the cafe is good also and the facility is just stunning, so much more than we expected out here.

On another note its quite a busy airfield out here and last night we had a visit from an MD-11 (i think) landing for its final flight, there is a company based at the airfield that breaks large jets for parts so we have a lot of them around the place. Numerous A320, 747's and 737's as well as many other aircraft. When I can get on the field will post some photos of the graveyard but this can be seen pretty clearly from Google earth or something like that.

(CTC is based in the top right of this photo, where you see the pools, accommodation is opposite that. )