Off to South Africa...

In a few hours I begin about 30 hours of travel, starting with an 8am bus to the Boston Airport. I then take four flights: Boston-DC-Dakar-Johannesburg-Cape Town. I actually like traveling and airports and airplanes and such, but even for me this is a long, tiring trip.This is actually my sixth trip to South Africa. My fiance lives in South Africa (he's from Joburg originally), so we commute back-and-forth between Cape Cod and Cape Town as part of our very long distance relationship. I'm very excited to be traveling to Cape Town once again-- Cape Town is already a second home to me, and I plan to move there later this year. Traveling regularly on 24 to 36 hour trips to Cape Town, I can say this: those trips to Europe and cross-country are a breeze now.

In true busy grad student form, I spent the last few days reducing data and finishing up things in lab rather than preparing for my trip. So, I need to stay up a couple more hours to pack and wash dishes and such. Somehow in the midst of hours upon hours of data reduction, I never noticed the tornado that whipped through my apartment, scattering clothes and books and coffee cups everywhere. I need to try to reassemble my apartment into relative order before I leave. It's okay-- in my experience sleeping little the night before the trip can lead to some tolerable on-flight sleep. And at least on South African Airways the flight attendants are friendly, the food is edible, and you can drink as much beer and wine as you want.

I often work on my trips to South Africa, but I'm just bringing a few papers with me this time. I'm taking some much-needed vacation after 4 months of hard work in lab with very few days off and too much time spent indoors. When I return, I hope to be refreshed and ready to finish up the very last of the labwork for my PhD thesis.

Blogging may be a little light the next two weeks. I will post the Geology Word of the Week, and I will re-post an "Origin of the Earth" series which I wrote awhile back for Skepchick. When I return from my vacation, I promise to post some pictures from South Africa. I'll also finish up the Oklo natural nuclear reactor post and finish putting together the Lulu book of my interviews with my dad, a nuclear engineer, about the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant disaster in Japan.

Okay, time to pack and wash dishes!