Skip to main content

My 40th birthday

Things I did on my 40th birthday:

1. Wake up in a city in Africa I've never been to before, Dar es Salaam, with a view of the Indian ocean from my hotel room (it's there in the background at the top right of the photo... really!)



2. Exercise - still going strong with P90X3 baby!

3. Eat a big, beautiful breakfast that included Tanzanian tea, local mangoes, and coconut milk - right out of the coconut!

4. Take a walk on the beach on the Indian Ocean

5. Work on my conference presentation for the East African Association for Paleoanthropology and Paleontology (I'm on the clock, after all)

6. Hang out with lots of awesome scientists - and get a champagne toast by my fabulous conference organizer colleagues at the conference reception!

7. Drink a Kilimanjaro beer

Other than being able to hug my boys, it doesn't get better than this. So far, my fourth decade is pretty darn awesome.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Travel for Two

The travel blog is baaaaaack! But with a big change from the last time I was keeping it updated... now it's for me and Toby! Cue the cute photo.



We're leaving for nearly two months in Kenya tomorrow. Bags are packed. Electronic devices are charged. Checklists are completed. Malarone (anti-malarial medication) is started. I guess that means we're ready...? (gulp)

Here's our basic itinerary, with a map: We'll be in Nairobi (purple dot) for about 2.5 weeks, while I do research on fossils from an archaeological site called Olorgesailie - I've been working on this project for quite a while! Then we'll spend a few days in Baringo District in a town called Mogotio (red dot) where I'll be helping to facilitate a 1.5 day workshop on evolution for Kenyan high school biology teachers. We'll drive back to Nairobi, then leave the next day for Ol Pejeta Conservancy (blue dot) for about a month of fieldwork studying the bones of modern animals.


I'll try to po…
Post a Comment
Read more

A relaxing Sunday in Nairobi

Today was a fairly quiet, relaxing Sunday. Toby slept late (until 9:30am - I'm hoping we get back onto a pretty normal schedule tomorrow!), and after Rick and Jenny left late morning to start the fieldwork in southern Kenya, I did a little more unpacking/organizing/etc.

After lunch, Toby and I went to the Muthaiga Country Club at the invitation of a Kenyan alumna from my undergraduate college (Bryn Mawr), Agnes. Agnes and I connected through one of the Bryn Mawr alum Facebook groups I'm a member of, and we realized today that we graduated a year apart although we didn't know each other while we were in college.

We hung out all afternoon with Agnes and her daughter Lynn, one of Lynn's friends, and Agnes's sister's three kids (her sister is in Finland on work travel). Agnes said they pretty much spend every Sunday there, and I could tell that a lot of the kids basically know each other and play together and feel very comfortable there.


Toby had fun playing on th…
Post a Comment
Read more

The museum work begins!

We're settling into our museum work routine pretty nicely. I always appreciate the ~5 minute walk up the hill from the apartment to get to work in the morning - as opposed to my hour long commute at home...!






Toby is definitely enjoying the company of Mercy, his nanny! I found her thanks to my other-archaeologists-with-kids network; Mercy is the daughter of a woman who was a nanny for archaeologist friends of mine, Sonia and Jason, when they lived in Nairobi for about a year a few years ago with their (then) toddler daughter. Mercy is currently on summer break between her second and third year of law school. The staff at the museum have been very kind and accommodating, allowing Toby and Mercy to set up on a table in a large room where some of the staff work on computers. They've been keeping busy with LEGOs, reading books, doing art projects, playing on a nearby playground I didn't even know about, and more. They are on the other side of the Paleontology lab from where I&…
Post a Comment
Read more