Day 4

Hello from the Dubai airport! The roof leaks and it's over-run by rogue birds, but otherwise very nice. Also, it magically converted all of my internet tool bars into Arabic which was quite the surprise. It's 32 degrees Celsius outside but you would never know it with the air conditioning.

This past weekend in London was exactly what I needed to relax and mentally prepare for field work. And this was in spite of having the worst jet-lag I have ever experienced! After our adventures on Saturday, Tina and I met up on Sunday morning and took a leisurely stroll along the Thames and past Westminster Abbey, Trafalger Square, and on to the shops in Oxford Circus. I even bought a beautiful white dress from a store called Oasis. However, after discussing our upcoming laundry situation with Katie, I elected to send it home with my sister. That's ok, it will just give me an excuse to buy from African designers in Dar es Salaam. On Sunday night, I met up with my sister's in-laws who I'm actively courting to become part my own regular extended family. I thought I hit the jackpot when my sister married a nice guy like Ben but I have to say, his family definitely sweetens the deal. We had a really nice dinner full of steak, laughs, and conversation. I evened acquired the secret hiding place of the elusive Dr. Madcock so I can send him a postcard from Tanzania. To finish it off, my British family had me home before 10:30 pm so I didn't wake my 3 roomies. Trust me, cranky archaeologists are to be avoided.

Yesterday morning (which sounds strange since we haven't slept since then), we met with several researchers at the Natural History Museum in London who are collaborating on one of my supervisor's other projects. The purpose of our visit was to pick up some fossils to return to Tanzania. The meeting was really interesting, but even better was what happened afterwards. Our rather famous palaeoanthropologist host offered to take out the original Broken Hill/Kabwe skull, a stupendously complete specimen of Homo heidelbergensis. For non-anthropologists, this is basically the equivalent of getting a private viewing of the crown jewels. Original fossils are so valuable that they are almost always kept in storage under lock and key, while their casts are circulated. Seeing such a fossil is a once in a lifetime experience. It was a really nice way to end our trip to London. Well, that and the amazing Italian restaurant we found for lunch.

Since then, we've been traveling non-stop. We took one of Emirates' new two-story air buses from London to Dubai, which had a fountain at the entrance to first class. We'll spent a few hours in the airport on layover, and then fly to Dar es Salaam later this evening. Flights from Edmonton to Dubai have already taken about 15 hours, and we still have 5.5 hours of air time left to go. You better show me some love, Africa. This is the second time in less than a week that I've been awake for more than 24 hours for you.