Let's Talk About Michigan

First off, let's stop all this talk of "Michigan is so far north." It's not, at least, not Ann Arbor. I checked and the latitude of Ann Arbor is 42.2708° N. The latitude of Providence, Utah is 41.7064° N. Given that a degree of latitude is about 69 miles, that means that it's about 35 miles north of Providence. So, not really that far north.

Anyway, here we are! We took a long time to get from Provo to Ann Arbor, but we finally made it! Joseph was a champ, except for when he would get hungry 15 minutes after he would act like he was done eating. And one of us had to play chauffeur while the other sat in the back entertaining him. But overall he was pretty good (with the exception of him having his largest blowout ever in the Kansas City Temple Parking Lot [complete with flinging his mess all over the car and getting it all over my skirt] right before we were about to hand him to my aunt and go in), and he's even starting to sleep through the night again.

Sometimes he didn't like the car

I can't tell if he's enthralled by something or tired of me taking pictures.

So far, we like it here. It took me about a day to warm up to our new apartment, not because it's not great, but just because it's different. As I took my initial tour of the house, stuff like the stained toilet, the hardwood floors (I prefer vacuuming to sweeping), and the lack of light fixtures in the bedroom and living room filled me with dread. Were we really going to live here for the next 4 years? But then as I've compared the apartment to our apartment in Inca Villa, I've decided that it's definitely a step up. Another bedroom, a bathtub, more kitchen space, really fast upload and download speeds, a large master bedroom . . . I have since warmed up to it. It reminds me a lot of the house we lived in in New Jersey when I was 11. It took me a while to warm up to that house, too (it had the same kind of hardwood floors), but I grew to love it.

Kitchen

Dining room + living room

Joseph's room. Ours is the same, only bigger

A tub! Smaller than our old bathroom, but we'll adjust

Incidentally, I've been forming a lot of connections the last little while, trying to find similar elements to New Jersey, Kansas (where my mom grew up), and my home in Utah. Overall, Ann Arbor reminds me the most of New Jersey, with a bit of Lawrence, Kansas mixed in.

So, what does Michigan have?
1. Trees. It doesn't look like our part of Michigan has as many as the part of Indiana we drove through, but then again we had to go on a detour through a windy forest in Indiana, so maybe I'm just biased. But there still are lots! And they are tall and green and leafy.
As we drove, I tried to see if anything reminded me of Utah. I realized that all the rolling hills and trees showed up in Utah, but they just showed up in pockets here and there. You can find forests if you look in the canyons, but there aren't really any in residential areas. In the Midwest, basically everything is surrounded by trees.

2. Decent water. Better than Indiana water. Not quite as good as Utah water, but it's pretty close.

3. Decent traffic. Fewer cars than Provo.

4. In fact, the cars I've seen the most of have been of this variety:

via

There are a ton of them in our complex. I think I counted 9.

5. A church that is closer to our apartment than the church we met at in Provo. Really.

6. Good Mexican food. We found an authentic place the second day we were here. The only downside is that the salsa was so spicy that it may have made Joseph upset the next day. (I'm finally conceding that what you eat may sort of affect your milk.)

7. Mormons. At least there are a lot where we are. Then again, it's graduate family housing. Also a lot of international students. I'm excited.


What does Michigan not have?
1. Mountains. I figured something out while we were driving through states such as Illinois, Indiana, and Michigan. These all have fairly large populations, but I didn't really see any houses. Where were all the people hiding? Then I realized that in Utah, thanks to the mountains and lack of trees, you can basically see 3/4 of the population stacked up as you drive on I-15.
Sometimes I expect to see the mountains and they're not there, but I'm doing okay without them so far.

2. Humidity. Okay, it does have some, but it's not nearly as humid as I was expecting. Then again, Kansas was not humid at all, and it's always humid in the summer! I blame the drought.

We drove past a lot of dead corn in Kansas.

3. Cheap potatoes. Or maybe it was just the grocery store we were at. At any rate, Idaho potatoes have a lot farther to travel.

4. Light fixtures. Apparently light fixtures are a Utah thing. But we got $9.00 lamps which are plenty bright, so life is good again.

Anyway, those are just some things I've noticed in our short time here. Once I actually meet people, I'll make more observations (though maybe not blog posts about them). At any rate, we are all so excited to be starting our adventure here!

. . . Especially Joseph. More on him coming soon . . .