As most of you know, we’re in final countdown to leave on our trip overseas. We found out we were leaving just last week and managed to figure out a flight itinerary that got us where we needed to go at a semi-reasonable cost.

We’re in the odd situation of taking a four day vacation in Paris in order to save $6,500. I know. Please don’t feel too badly for me. That was the cost difference between flying directly to Africa on Christmas Eve versus flying to Paris four days earlier. With 120,000 Hilton HHonors points that I’ve accumulated, we’re staying for free on those three nights at the Trianon Palace in Versailles. Do not cry for me, Argentina.

After Versailles, we board an Ethiopian Airlines jet on Christmas Eve to fly into Addis Ababa. I am beyond excited about meeting my eight month old daughter on Christmas morning, and experiencing her native land in all of its beauty — and from everything I’ve heard, it’s an exceedingly beautiful country.

On Sunday and Monday, we leave the bustling capital city to travel south to the small village where she was born. We have a chance of meeting her birth mother there and we’d love to do that.

On Tuesday, we visit the United States Embassy to formalize her visa application. If all goes well, they issue said visa on New Year’s Eve and we embark that night on the 32 hour flight home to the United States with our little girl, arriving home on New Year’s Day 2010 with just a few minutes to spare.

I’m quite confident that, while on this trip, we will taste amazing French and Ethiopian food, drink unbelievably good Ethiopian coffee, see stunning artifacts of history, and experience amazing contrasts of riches and poverty. It will change and shape our lives for many years to come. I can’t wait to report back to you all the things that we have the chance to see, hear and learn.

The best way to follow along on our trip is via my Twitter feed. My posts there usually transfer over to Facebook in a timely fashion. I’m also working on some ways I can have them transfer to this blog too. But both of those methods rely on technology that may or may not be totally reliable, so if you want it straight from the source, check Twitter directly.

Just so you all know, I’ll have zero access to voice mail and extremely limited access to e-mail, especially after we leave France. After we arrive back home with our little girl and have a few days to get re-acclimated, I’ll be certain to respond to you if you’ve sent me a message during these couple of weeks.

Question: What should we “not miss” in either France or Ethiopia? What do you most want to hear about during our trip? Use the comments below to let us know!