feeling compelled by the trend set by you other media-savvy bloggers, i give you this glorious photograph. i'm sure many of you have asked umpteen times, "now what would a travel guru such as rick steves tell me to do in this hairy predicament?" well, in future such circumstances you can look no further than yours truly for two reasons.

1) i met the guy. and given my astonishing ability to glean all of a person's wisdom and experience from sharing a few casual words, i'd say it's only a matter of time before aaron convinces his tv station that they should quit doing news and give me my own show. i mean, it's all entertainment anyway, right?
(mr. steves did a couple events for Bread this week. he supports our work, and i really think i could listen to him talk about ethnocentric americans and cheese for days on end.)

2) even if my powers of extraction have (doubtedly) failed, i may soon have the opportunity to become a travel guru in my own right. this summer i have the amazing opportunity to go on a semi-around-the-world trip to 5 foreign countries on 3 continents in 6 weeks!! it's gonna be crazy. crazy incredible! AND i will hopefully get to SEE KRISTEN!!!!! that's right - we'll be spending 2 whole weeks in ethiopia!! ahhh i can't even imagine it! so the whole trip will be romania, ethiopia, uganda, nyc, haiti, mexico...and then birmingham. late june-august 10.
so i wanted you all to know. the trip is focused on poverty (the millennium development goals, specifically) and is being organized by the same group (cbf) that is sponsoring my internship at Bread. we'll be meeting up with their missions personnel at each location. i'm pumped.
i'd also like to thank ryan for his inspiring advise in his last post and am already contemplating ways i can apply it to this trip. i'm excited about trying to laugh in all these different languages when i fall down, but i worry about knocking people down as i go for what i want. i think rick steves would frown upon it.

i love this blog. i love you all, and i sincerely miss you.