I stumbled across the NY Times' list of The 53 Places to Go in 2008. Lists like this make me tired of Central Illinois. I could be convinced that I should travel to just about anywhere in the world, and this list definitely puts a few ideas into my head for sometime in the distant future. Some of the entries in the list I don't understand though. I don't think my wanderlust extends to Iran or Detroit. I was excited to see Mozambique and Namibia on the list. Mozambique is high on my list of places to see while I am in Africa, and after reading this I may have to go to Namibia, if I can.

Christmas was good. I'm not a huge fan of many things that Christmas entails (the insane shopping season, 90% of Christmas music. no I'm not a scrooge, it's just that a lot of it is bad) but I really do love Christmas. A large part of our extended family came here, which was good cause I got to see them one last time before I take off. My main present was a plane ticket to Seattle to see Chris McG before I leave. I also got some money to buy some things I'll need for Zambia. Tomorrow Warwick and Ben come to town and we'll reunite for the first time in about a year, which is always fun. We were inseparable for the last two years of high school, and while we've gone our separate ways and changed a lot since then, whenever we're together it still feels like summer of 2002.