The 2009 Field Expedition

So it's another year, complete with another field trip... I think they're slowly progressing to be more and more insane as the year's go by, but as I'm sitting in Denver International waiting for my flight, I thought it was time to restart this blog so as to keep everyone posted on my whereabouts. So here's the overview: 4 weeks in Costa Rica, coordinating a course on climate change in the tropics for OTS (the Organization for Tropical Studies) - it's a 3-week course, but I'm going down a few days early to prepare (read:...uh... figure out what we're going to do? come up with a talk or two?). It's a field course (so we're traveling around a bit and staying at various field stations), mostly grad students, but a few post-docs, NGO-types and other professionals for variety - with backgrounds in a combination of biology/ecology/economics/conservation/education. Let's leave it at: I think I'll be learning more from the participants than they'll be from me. Then it's pretty much straight to Finland for a field campaign in Hyytiala - "straight" involving a 6-hour layover in DIA - but since that involves not only changing airlines, but also going through US Immigration (because, really, who doesn't want to go through that for a layover), it will be extra-fun.

DIA is not really worth taking a photo to post. It's your pretty standard large hub airport. There's amazingly little open at 11pm. And the baggage storage facilities are excruciatingly expensive (so I checked my little 'Finland' bag - maybe I'll want the extra turtleneck at La Selva?). The one perk of the late-night flight is a non-existent security line.

Rumour has it that there's wireless internet in the San Jose airport - things sure have changed since I was there in 2000, when the bags from ALL the flights were tossed into a pile at the unlabeled baggage claim. So perhaps, as I wait for the bus to La Selva, I will have more excitement to share. Or perhaps, considering the 20 high school kids who just came SCREAMING (quite literally) into the departure gate like a herd of wildebeest, I will just need to vent. One of those two.