Is there an easy way to set the default timezone for all api calls?

[phpdave]

Problem:
I was saving the creation time of transaction in the database with

$transaction = Recurly_Transaction::get($id); 
$creationdatetime = $transaction->created_at->format('Y-m-d H:i:s')

But that date and time aren't in my timezone, so Now I have to set the timezone every time before I save it or use it

$transaction = Recurly_Transaction::get($id); 
$creationdatetime  = $transaction->created_at->setTimezone(new DateTimeZone('America/New_York'))->format('Y-m-d H:i:s');

Is there a way to make the created_at property to always be set to my timezone?

I may just write a wrapper around the class to do this, but I thought I'd see if there was already a way around this.

[phpdave]

Nevermind, I just realized with daylights savings time its always best to use Zulu timezone