![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
So as I'd mentioned in passing, this weekend I went home with Maria for Thanksgiving. Aaand it was awesome n_n I got treated like a princess and Maria and her whole family are really nice~ Maria, you're an amazing friend to me :) I hope you had fun too.
Havasu is one of the most picturesque places I think I've ever been, honestly. And it's Arizona-ish but manages to both feel more friendly than Tucson, and also way more genuine than Phoenix. Maria always said it was small but it struck me as pretty large, like maybe the size of Arlington and Belmont combined. It's nestled in a valley and all the roads are really curvy, on rolling hills and there are really stunning views facing down into a pretty lake basically everywhere you go. <3 When we got there it was all cloudy and rainy and the visibility wasn't very good, but there were still mountains visible everywhere--and when it cleared out you could see peaks and valleys seemingly forever, into the California highlands, just across the lake. Maria showed me all sorts of stuff, like the store where she worked, and the London Bridge which they apparently imported from England, and parks, and water, and everything. On Friday night we took a shuttle across the lake, and there's a shitty little casino on the other side, but also a gorgeous view of the entire city as the sun went down and little lights popped up in the distance.
It's kind of weird, and totally cool, having someone ELSE showing me THEIR hometown. Last year it was always me dragging people around my familiar haunts since I was the one who lived close to school. It's just so awesome that there are people from so many different places; I feel like some part of me assumes that everyone has basically the same experiences and history that I do, even while I cognitively know differently. Seeing such amazing places and taking in so many new mental images to my mind and realizing that to so many people, that to Maria and Mario and Kaydee these are *home*, these are their versions of Mass Ave and Lake Street and Alewife Brook Parkway...it's crazy :) It blows my mind, in a good way. <3
Maria is also a rock-solid driver. It's a long way between Havasu and Tucson. And I'm sure driving through Arizona nothingness must get REALLY OLD if you're used to it, but it's the stuff of dreams for a New England citydork like me. It's like nonstop eyecandy, from distant hazy mountains to endless desert grass, and distant craggy cliff faces and fields of cactus; more than you can count. I have all these endlesss images of little gas stations popping up in the middle of nowhere, and little lots along the highway filled with dozens of spare 18-wheelers sleeping under the desert sun. There were even fields of sheep. Everytime we saw a sign that said 100-something miles to Phoenix, or 85 miles to Tucson, I giggled a little inside, because the numbers are so laughably big. The concept of the vastness, the open highway for miles and miles and miles still touch something of fantasy, like being a little girl and watching old western shows and learning about America and the southwest with the concept of *big* and thinking that it was so far away; barely even real. Now that it is real, I can barely conceive of it. :)
I know that I complain about Tucson a lot...I have kind of a love/hatehatehate relationship with Tucson, but I absolutely adore Arizona. It's like a breath of fresh air after a young life of rickety old colonial houses and pigeons in the rain and faces hardened from years of long winter nights. I have never ever ever regretted coming here--maybe once, back at orientation, I might have wished I'd chosen differently, or that I'd had another choice, but I think even back then it was pretty clear to me that I needed to be here and not there. I'm so glad I'm in Arizona, I'm so glad for the sunshine and the mountains and the trucks and the genuine-ness, the freshness of it all. And I'm so thankful for my few amazing friends, who give me more love than I'm sure I could ever deserve. <3
I don't know the next time I'm going to be able to leave Tucson, but that doesn't really bother me that much at the moment...I feel renewed. Not sure I'm totally ready to go back to class/work, but renewed nonetheless.
Also, it's totally weird that it's Sunday at 2.30 and I'm not at work. I should really figure out something good to do with this time. Like bike to a café and knit. I think I might just.
Havasu is one of the most picturesque places I think I've ever been, honestly. And it's Arizona-ish but manages to both feel more friendly than Tucson, and also way more genuine than Phoenix. Maria always said it was small but it struck me as pretty large, like maybe the size of Arlington and Belmont combined. It's nestled in a valley and all the roads are really curvy, on rolling hills and there are really stunning views facing down into a pretty lake basically everywhere you go. <3 When we got there it was all cloudy and rainy and the visibility wasn't very good, but there were still mountains visible everywhere--and when it cleared out you could see peaks and valleys seemingly forever, into the California highlands, just across the lake. Maria showed me all sorts of stuff, like the store where she worked, and the London Bridge which they apparently imported from England, and parks, and water, and everything. On Friday night we took a shuttle across the lake, and there's a shitty little casino on the other side, but also a gorgeous view of the entire city as the sun went down and little lights popped up in the distance.
It's kind of weird, and totally cool, having someone ELSE showing me THEIR hometown. Last year it was always me dragging people around my familiar haunts since I was the one who lived close to school. It's just so awesome that there are people from so many different places; I feel like some part of me assumes that everyone has basically the same experiences and history that I do, even while I cognitively know differently. Seeing such amazing places and taking in so many new mental images to my mind and realizing that to so many people, that to Maria and Mario and Kaydee these are *home*, these are their versions of Mass Ave and Lake Street and Alewife Brook Parkway...it's crazy :) It blows my mind, in a good way. <3
Maria is also a rock-solid driver. It's a long way between Havasu and Tucson. And I'm sure driving through Arizona nothingness must get REALLY OLD if you're used to it, but it's the stuff of dreams for a New England citydork like me. It's like nonstop eyecandy, from distant hazy mountains to endless desert grass, and distant craggy cliff faces and fields of cactus; more than you can count. I have all these endlesss images of little gas stations popping up in the middle of nowhere, and little lots along the highway filled with dozens of spare 18-wheelers sleeping under the desert sun. There were even fields of sheep. Everytime we saw a sign that said 100-something miles to Phoenix, or 85 miles to Tucson, I giggled a little inside, because the numbers are so laughably big. The concept of the vastness, the open highway for miles and miles and miles still touch something of fantasy, like being a little girl and watching old western shows and learning about America and the southwest with the concept of *big* and thinking that it was so far away; barely even real. Now that it is real, I can barely conceive of it. :)
I know that I complain about Tucson a lot...I have kind of a love/hatehatehate relationship with Tucson, but I absolutely adore Arizona. It's like a breath of fresh air after a young life of rickety old colonial houses and pigeons in the rain and faces hardened from years of long winter nights. I have never ever ever regretted coming here--maybe once, back at orientation, I might have wished I'd chosen differently, or that I'd had another choice, but I think even back then it was pretty clear to me that I needed to be here and not there. I'm so glad I'm in Arizona, I'm so glad for the sunshine and the mountains and the trucks and the genuine-ness, the freshness of it all. And I'm so thankful for my few amazing friends, who give me more love than I'm sure I could ever deserve. <3
I don't know the next time I'm going to be able to leave Tucson, but that doesn't really bother me that much at the moment...I feel renewed. Not sure I'm totally ready to go back to class/work, but renewed nonetheless.
Also, it's totally weird that it's Sunday at 2.30 and I'm not at work. I should really figure out something good to do with this time. Like bike to a café and knit. I think I might just.
