Where Have I Been and What Am I Thinking?

Spring is here! As a new Oklahoman, I am unfortunately learning that spring springing means it is tornado season. When we were buying our house, the realtor made a point to tell us how excited we should be that each house we looked at had a tornado shelter. Coming from Indiana, I can remember maybe 2 or 3 tornados ever truly threatening any sort of property damage in our area. In 2020 alone, Oklahoma had 39! 149 in 2019! I have yet to take a peek into our storm shelter, mostly due to fear of what is possibly living down there at the moment, but it sounds like taking the shop vac and going to battle down there needs to be priority number 1. Between cleaning up the storm shelter and getting the yard ready for summer, the joys of homeownership are already very apparent. (Continue Reading)

It seems as though we blinked and it is already the middle of February. Between the holidays, applying for jobs, transitioning to living life in America again, I have neglected my reading list in January. Apologies to the few people who did check for the January reading (shoutout Google Analytics), but I am happy to report we are back on track for February! (Continue Reading)

With the holiday season upon us, European Christmas markets should be buzzing with joy, decorations, beautifully decorated trees, and most importantly gluhwein. Unfortunately, that isn’t the case this year because of COVID, but that doesn’t preclude us from talking about which markets should make your bucket list. After all, this virus won’t be around forever, and you better believe everyone will be burning their vacation days as soon as possible to make up for lost travel plans. (Continue Reading)

Welcome back, it’s been a while! While I apologize for my absence in posts, it turns out that planning and executing a transatlantic move, with two pets no less, is infinitely more of a task to take on than I had prepared for. While my wife was a badass and took care of most of it, it still required a lot of teamwork. Thankfully, we have made it to Oklahoma City, and boy have we hit the ground running. I want to begin by saying that leaving Europe was much, much harder than I thought it would be. For what was a pretty up and down experience for myself, I truly didn’t think I would be so sad and emotional leaving our apartment and our city. Maastricht was truly the best possible place we could have spent the last 3 years, and I will forever recommend it to anybody who will listen. I cannot wait to take our future children there, show them where we lived, and relive the memories. (Continue Reading)

Since I’m sure nearly everyone has gotten through the 10 episodes of Netflix’s new masterpiece, Emily in Paris, I figured now would be a good time to share my experiences in the baguette capital of the world. I’ve been lucky enough to have the opportunity to travel to Paris on two separate occasions, and I had two different experiences each time that I went. The prevailing theme of both trips to Paris was that it really does live up to the dream-like expectations that movies and television shows give it. There is an energy and aura about the city that sucks you into its romanticism. It’s inescapable, and you end up really loving every second of it. There’s a reason that there are so many quotes and stories from famous artists such as Hemingway, Wilde, Fitzgerald, and the like, about how Paris provides inspiration like no other place in the world can. One must visit Paris to truly understand the feelings that this city can provoke inside a person.(Continue Reading)

Summer tourism in Europe has really taken a hit because of COVID-19. In late May/early June, things were trending in a good direction, and there was a strong marketing effort to “Reopen Europe” by high tourist season in July. This marketing effort was largely successful, until people actually started to travel again, and cases began to spike in popular tourist regions. That being said, some countries have definitely had better luck in welcoming tourists than others. Portugal is one of those countries that has had a very successful time reopening to tourists. The Department of Tourism for Portugal (Tourismo de Portugal) launched the “Clean and Safe” campaign with the goal of encouraging tourists to return to Portuguese hotspots like Lisbon, Faro, Portimão, and Porto. This initiative has been largely successful to date and gives tourists an extra layer of comfortability booking a hotel that has the “seal of approval” in terms of cleanliness from an official branch of the Portuguese government. Katie and I decided to take advantage of these extensive efforts and booked a weekend sipping wine on an ocean view balcony and laying on some of the most beautiful beaches in Europe. With the beginning of the planning for our transatlantic move looming, we wanted to get one last getaway to reach maximum levels or relaxation before things went to chaos. (Continue Reading)