Apparently, February 9th is National Pizza Day. Google isn’t sure why, but we don’t care. We will take any excuse to eat more pizza. Thursday is usually our weekly pizza night, so we shifted it a day. No complaints here.
To make this a worthwhile post, here is a list of our top five spots to get pizza in New Orleans. In no particular order…
Why is that place always so busy? Sure, the location is great. The name is fun. But who would wait in such a long line for tacos? In Los Angeles, I get it, but New Orleans? Maybe the lack of great tacos has made this place royalty. We always wanted to try Barracuda Tacos but refused to wait in that line. Fortunately, they opened another location on our side of the river! So, naturally, we ate almost everything there.
It is that time again! Our Olympic clocks were off since Tokyo was delayed because of covid. Here we are, fourteen years after the Beijing Summer olympics, for a much colder lineup of events. The Superbowl doesn’t excite us much, but the Olympics and World Cup are a different story. Chris pulls out his Olympic wardrobe, we bought Peacock for maximum coverage, and celebrated the opening ceremony. How? By enjoying the host nation’s food of course!
Yelp! It is a platform that we’ve used for years, but have never really talked about on the blog. Why? It has always been a bit taboo, I suppose. Yelp doesn’t like their users doubling up their reviews. They see it as a conflict of interest. They have some control issues. As a result, we’ve always said no to their annual invites to be Yelp Elite. We play it safe by avoiding be too far in Yelp. Still, we love to use it for the following reason.
There’s no feeling quite like trail running, but winter trail running is a whole other beast. We’re not just talking about the physical effort needed. There’s far more to enjoy when it comes to winter running, from empty trails to absolute quiet to the sun reflecting off fresh snow to hearing your feet crunch with every step.
If you read our recent post about going through old drafts, you’d know that most of our ideas didn’t make the cut. A lot of those restaurants aren’t open right now. While many of the ideas are outdated and relevant, some are more welcome now. With restrictions in place across the country, isolated outdoor activity has become more popular than ever. People who never cared for hiking are discovering the beauty of the great outdoors. While we lived in Los Angeles, we were fortunate to discover one of its greatest escapes: Idyllwild.
If you haven’t noticed through our social media, we moved to New Orleans! We are now home owners! It’s been a wild five months; we’ve experienced a hurricane, fostered a pregnant dog, painted a whole house, just to name a few.
Why leave Los Angeles? Well, we’d been ready to leave Los Angeles for quite some time. Although we had family there, we didn’t really fit into the lifestyle anymore. Los Angeles is incredibly expensive and it doesn’t fit well into the simple monthly budget template we set up. In all actuality, it doesn’t make much sense to live there unless you’re part of the entertainment industry. It’s a real grind and traffic is a pill. We wanted to slow down a bit, collect some more savings before we made the big trip across the pond to New Zealand.
As some of you may know, we’ve been planning on moving to New Orleans, Louisiana. We wanted to find a place that could match the cultural strength of Los Angeles… with A LOT less people, and traffic. Alana loved NOLA/The Big Easy/The Crescent City after helping out when Hurricane Katrina hit. She always wanted to take me there and we finally visited for the first time during their Tricentennial, which was early last year. She was worried that I wouldn’t enjoy their drinking culture, but I didn’t mind. Sure, the tourists on Bourbon Street were annoying, but the locals on Frenchmen Street were great! I didn’t have my trombone with me, but if I did, I surely would’ve joined their impromptu marching band at midnight.
Tis the time of the year to start buying presents for your family, friends, etc, if you do that sort of thing! We’re sure some of you are already finished shopping, while many others don’t plan on starting until it is too late to have everything shipped in time. This weekend is generally seen as one of the best to shop, at least when it comes to prices. There are countless sales for Black Friday and we recommended taking advantage of this for a few reasons: 1) you might save some money in the process and 2) it will help you get your shopping done now and alleviate some stress in the upcoming weeks.
Studying abroad is an exciting experience for students from the United States. During your studies and travels, you’ll experience a new culture and may possibly benefit from unexpected opportunities.
Still, international experiences can be overwhelming for some. One of the most important things that you can do to prepare for your big trip is to start a travel fund. This is a luxury expense that you contribute to after stashing away money for emergencies and retirement. Use a separate FIDC insured savings account to distance yourself from your travel bankroll and keep it safe.
Start saving early, and make deposits often. Furthermore, don’t wait to start saving until you’ve made all your plans. Once you’ve done this, you can adjust your savings so that your travel nest egg is on target by the time you leave for your trip.
The following sections reveal 7 more insightful and fun tips to prepare you for an overseas learning adventure.
