There are cacti outside my window.

I like the American southwest. It's so... red. You don't get much of that color in the Midwest.

Also, it's downright rapturous being outside of Michigan.

For now, I am sitting in the lobby waiting for my mother to feel better and my cousins to wake up and eat breakfast, at which point we will converge and surely good things will happen. Like seeing lizards.

The flights were pretty nice--I'm always terrified of flying, thinking morbid thoughts ("If the plane goes down, what will be my last words? This will be my date of death. Should I call all my friends?") until I'm actually in the air. The worst part (also the best) for me is the take-off, and the way that occasionally during the ascent, it feels like you're slowing down, like you're going to fall. After that I'm fine.

I didn't get a window seat on either flight (we switched planes in Minneapolis), but I did get to lean over and see the Grand Canyon from the air. Which I recommend doing, if you ever fly over Arizona.

The first thing I noticed when I got here is how cold it really is. It wasn't even 50 degrees! Next week it's supposed to be warmer, though.

ALSO: People of Arizona, you are single-handedly causing global warming! Please, stop buying SUV's. I know your terrain is a bit rocky, but honestly, how often are you really speeding through the desert soil, leaving clouds of red dust and rugged Bob Segar songs in your wake? Probably not as often as you think. For shame.

People here are friendly, though. Like Pete ("like 'pet' with an E! 'Peter' without the R!"), and the staff person outside, who was telling my mom all about his untimely divorce yesterday while we were waiting for my aunt to pick us up, and I was deep in a Chuck Klosterman book.

My like my aunt. She has an excellent accent (Australian), gave me chai tea to drink, and wants to take me to Trader Joe's. I met my younger three cousins yesterday (4, 7, 11). I like them, even though kids and I don't usually mix well--these ones are sweet. They say "mummy" and call my mother "Auntie Anne", pronouncing it "ahntie". The youngest, Sophia, kills me. While we were eating dinner, she left the table and came back with floss, whereupon she proceeded to floss her teeth.

My mom and her brother intermittently floated into conversation in German, for whatever reason, which was strange, but not as annoying as when I'm in Germany and no one speaks English at all.

I suppose I should study now, or do something similarly productive.