How Did Georgetown End Up in an Ethiopian In-Flight Magazine?

The first issue of Selamta Magazine, the Ethiopian Airlines in-flight magazine, featured a two-page story "24 Hours (in Georgetown, D.C.)" that provided a quick look at the neighborhood and a list of places to enjoy food, culture and history.

The piece itself is innocuous. It proposes an itinerary for spending 24 hours in Georgetown.

The day begins at with a coffee and "hippie crack," continues with a walk along the and the Campus and takes a break at one point for lunch at . Other featured destinations are , , , , and the . Of course, dinner at Das Ethiopian was on the agenda.

In all, not a bad mix of touristy stops and Georgetown local favorites. But how did Georgetown end up sandwiched between an essay singing the praises of Parisian macarons and a photo of a man in white robes "freewheeling" in the sand dunes of the United Arab Emirates?

Patch tracked down the author of the Georgetown article, Jodi MacFarlan. She is listed as the associate editor in the Selamta Magazine masthead, but her real job is as an account manager at Charlottesville-based Journey Group, Inc.

Journey Group publishes and creates products in print and online for clients like the U.S. Postal Service, the University of Virginia, and, apparently, Ethiopian Airlines. They have offices in Charlottesville and Virginia Beach, VA, Washington, D.C., Nashville, TN and Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. And, on average, their employees drink 2.25 cups of coffee per day.

MacFarlan described her employer as the "publisher" for Selamta magazine. She explained that the goal is to feature stories on each of the airline's destination cities, but at the moment, Ethiopian Airlines only U.S. destination is Dulles. 

The businesses she chose to profile were not clients of Journey Group, but were just those she knew personally from spending time in the neighborhood.

"I'm from Northern Virginia myself and I know Georgetown well," MacFarlan offered by way of explanation.

Mystery solved.

If you were to write an article for someone who has never been to Georgetown, where would you tell them to go?