It’s dawning on me now that I leave the country for the rest of the summer in just over 24 hours. First I’ll be in Pretoria for a few weeks studying Australopithecus robustus fossils at the Transvaal Museum. Then I’m off to Nairobi for a few days to check out some fossils at the Natural History Museum there. I’ve never been to Nairobi, and I’ll admit I’m a little nervous; I’ll keep you posted as to how it goes. Then right before my mum’s birthday I head to Tbilisi, Georgia for the 2nd annual Dmanisi Paleoanthropology Field School, until the end of August. Here’s a schematic of what my trip will look sorta like, starting from bottom to top.:

My whole life was up in the air for most of the first half of the year. But everything seems to have come together, so hopefully the second half of 2011 will be better than the first. That said, I don’t think I’m ready to go yet!