New Orleans Mardi Gras 2013

Andrew and I adventured into the wonderful world of Mardi Gras at none other than the heart of debauchery itself, New Orleans Bourbon Street.

Both of us are fond of the Big Easy, visiting it often sans-beads and boobies.  But the city was all good-girl-gone-bad for the week of Mardi Gras– and we kinda liked it. 🙂

I flew into Dallas from Washington, D.C. and met up with Andrew and the two of us ventured off with our NoLa-virgin friends in tow!

The calm before the storm…

Beignets all day every day!

Beads….

on beads…

on beads!

So MUCH food!

And of course old-timey photos!

Lasting Impressions?

• I saw a grown man urinate his pants in the middle of the street.
• I stood next to two minors openly passing a joint back and forth– police within arms reach.
• According to the Christian radicals I am absolutely going to hell for 8/10 items on their list of sins (one of which was being AT Mardi Gras).
• I was hit in the head with a water bottle for complimenting a man about his drunken teamwork.
• I saw many pierced nipples and that wasn’t really my thing.
• And I was front row to a gentleman “helicoptering” his man parts for beads.

I love New Orleans.

And, you’re welcome Nola for the small chunk of change I contriubuted to the $300 million economic city surge.

…but more importantly, who’s in for MG2014?

M

hi again.

Oh, hello there strangers!

We’re back with a vengeance.

Travel, food, fashion, debauchery, life, love, and the pursuit of fascination.

No need to miss us anymore, we’re here to play.

Coming tomorrow:

Did you get Fat on Tuesday? We did. M’s take on New Orleans Mardi Gras 2013.

IGOUMENITSA GREECE… I WILL EVENTUALLY MAKE IT THROUGH MY EUROPE PHOTOS

Okay so for real this time, I’m going to actually START blogging more regularly again… at least once a week (fingers crossed!). Truth be told, I think I got a little burnt out on it before and I needed to take a nice, long break before before I started to view blogging as fun again versus a chore lol.

Anyways, needless to say a LOT of changes have happened in my life since I was last blogging regularly. A BIG one that has been taking up the majority of my “free” time (and clothing budget for that matter lol) since June has been my new house!  I promise I’ll be doing a photoshoot of the house very, very soon so that you all can see. But needless to say, my little duplex furniture definitely did not fill the house so I’ve been on quite the decorating/furniture spree lol.

Another reason I haven’t been blogging is that I had not been able to find my SLR for a good two months lol. But this past week I found it sitting in a basket on the top shelf of my closet, so I’m back in business there!

But the house and such is another blog for another time. Until then, I’m using  a few more of my European vacation pictures to populate this post.

I give you… Igoumenitsa, Greece! Enjoy!

-Andrew J

Approaching Igoumenitsa on our Minoan Cruise!

I’m told I still haven’t really “seen” Greece until I have been to the Greek Isle’s, but the mainland is still plenty beautiful!

Igoumenitsa was definitely NOT a super touristy town. But there was something about that that I really liked. The town-folk looked at us like we were the first American’s there in quite a while lol, but it was cool.

We walked around the town before having dinner and went to a store to pick up a few snacks, groceries, and some things to drink for the room – it was SO cool to go shopping in a foreign town that was so obviously not geared to tourists lol. Sort of gave us a feeling for what it would be like to really live there.

View from the top of our hotel!

Some REALLY amazing Greek beef and vegetables. Plus we had some amazing tzatziki that was out of this world!

I obviously hated it 😉

Even the flowers in Greece were super different from any I had ever seen before. I don’t even know how many pictures I took of all of the different plants and flowers lol. I was a little obsessed…

I have seen a lot of sunsets in my life in some really beautiful places. I have to say, Greece perhaps takes the cake. The sun was just different there, especially when it hit the Mediterranean!

We only stayed two days in Greece, and the next day was kind of rainy and we stayed in doors most of the day to recharge and just took in the sleepy Greek town. I think it was a different experience from most people I have heard who have gone to Greece… But I sort of like it that way :). I felt like what we experienced was a little hidden treasure that is untouched and unknown by most American’s. I would definitely go back and cannot wait to!

Next European post – CROATIA! Hands down my new favorite place in the world!

ME & MARISA DO DALLAS 2012 STYLE

At last! At last! Marisa and I reunited at LAST! It was nearly three years in the making – but it finally happened and while it was absolutely amazing to be reunited again – it was WAY too short (all and all it was only about 24 hours!) :(.

In true Me & Marisa fashion though, it was a weekend filled with awesome food, shopping and of course… picking up right where we left off with one of my favorite people in the world!

Enjoy the photos – hopefully they give some idea of just how much fun we had together!

P.S. Many, many trips have been planned as a result of this one, so it will certainly not be another 2 1/2 years before we are together again!

-Andrew J.

Marisa styling it up at the airport – as soon as I saw her turn the corner at baggage claim, I had the BIGGEST uncontrollable smile on my face I’ve had in ages!  She looks so east coast though, we need to get this girl back to the SOUTH!

We were both STARVING when I picked her up, so of course the very first order of business – Campisi’s on Mockingbird for some comida.

Right after lunch it was time to kick the shopping into high gear! Marisa is involved in a new vintage store that is launching in Virginia so we hit up Curiosities Antique & Vintage to see if we could find anything fun. We sort of struck out on any purchases, but we had fun checking out everything the store had to offer.

Mildly freaky…

Feeling a little bummed out that we spent our first hour and a half without purchasing anything other than food, we hit up the one place we knew we could find something… NORTHPARK!  Even then, shopping was sort of a struggle for us, things just weren’t popping out as “gotta have’s”. Never the less, I got a great shirt for dinner that night and Marisa purchased a beautiful dress (photos of that a little further down in the post).

After shopping for a couple hours – we figured it was time to check into the W Dallas where we would be calling home for the next 24 hours.  The W was awesome! Great room – though it was weird that the bathroom was completely open aside from a curtain that separated the “bathroom” space of the room from the rest of the room – and I would definitely go back and stay there again!

Our first “Reunited” picture!

I really want that rolling chair for my new office!

What’s that? A model included in with the room?! Oh – it’s Marisa. Guess she just looks very at home there 🙂

Check out the awesome curtain behind me… yep, that’s the room divider!

We booked a reservation for Tom Colicchio‘s restaurant CRAFT thinking it would be pretty close to our hotel – but come to find out, it was actually IN our hotel. So add on the fact that the only places we went after dinner were Ghost Bar (BIG mistake) and the W Bar in the hotel lobby/lounge – from 6:30 pm until noon the next morning, we never once left the W lol.

Awesome light bars in CRAFT

Warning: The portions at CRAFT are absolutely humongous but incredibly delicious – bring your appetite people, I highly recommend the restaurant though! Tom definitely knows what he is doing.

Enjoying a bevvie before dinner.

We clean up okay 🙂  – and yes, that’s Marisa’s new dress. Verrry pretty, picture doesn’t even do it justice.

I really really loved the Lobby Bar Chandeliers at the W!

Ready to turn in for the night – back to the room!

I know I said I wouldn’t post it – but it’s really just too friggin cute of you not to post, if you want I can take it down ;). Marisa got hungry in the middle of the night and tackled some of the leftovers from dinner and lunch before lights out.

The next morning we both realized we … had not consumed enough water the night before… and I woke up to random pieces of Campisi’s pizza crust and a muffin CRAFT gave us for the next morning like so…

The morning after.

After we got up and around – we checked out of the W and headed to Knox-Henderson for some brunch at Tolouse. Fantastic brunch by the way (also highly recommend)!

Bloody Marry’s, Bagels, Beignets (with cappuccino sauce), and Belgian waffles (we were on a B kick apparently) made for the perfect Brunch!

After brunch – to postpone our inevitable departure, we kicked it over to Restoration Hardware and picked out my new dream furniture for my house.

Alas though – all good things must come to an end (yes, like this epic blog post). I dropped Marisa north of Dallas at her friends house and began my trek back to Norman. A very sad day, but SO glad it happened! Already cannot wait to see her again!

See you soon my friend – love you and miss you!

DATE FOR REUNITE IS SET!

After basically two years of separation – Marisa and I are set to reunite at long last this weekend!!!

I’ll be picking her up as she flies into Dallas on Saturday and for two days let D-Town be warned!

Amazing pics are to come, no doubt! And I’m sure there will be some fun pictures if you want to check them out on Instagram as they happen – my user name is aj546.

Have a great week!

-Andrew J.

VENICE | PHOTOS LONG OVERDUE

There is no place in the world that is quite like Venice – in my opinion it is one of the crowning jewels of Europe and while it has had a lot of “changes” and “upgrades” I still feel that the city as a whole has stayed true to its heritage and upon setting foot in the city, you are immediately transported to a place you feel you’ve only ever seen in a dream… or a movie at best.

Unfortunately I was only in Venice for a few hours – we got in from Prague at 5 in the morning, slept until 9 and then headed out to meet up with some friends before catching a cruise to Greece leaving at 2:00 pm.

I tried to make up in quality what I lacked in time – so enjoy the pictures!

-Andrew J

I was SO sure this was the Basilica … nope… sure wasn’t.

And I thought this was the Rialto … wrong again.

It’s really not fair how beautiful Venice is. Like – at all.

And I’m 99% sure the light is prettier there as well.

What’s a trip to Venice without spotting a gondola?

It was pretty cool to sail out of Venice on the cruise because I got some fantastic elevated shots from the water I would not have been able to get otherwise.

Does it make me a little OCD that all I’m noticing is that my camera lens is a little dirty here?

There’s Tyler!

Oh just another beautiful structure on a beautiful island in Venice.  Reminds me of The Tourist!

No idea what was happening here, but it was PACKED!

One of my favorite shots of the day.

The houses out on the islands were absolutely humongous!

Okay – that does it – going back now!

PRAGUE | PHOTOS LONG OVERDUE

Prague! Had to go there a second time since when I went there the first time, being… well… eleven… I don’t think I really appreciated the city for what it is. The only thing I could think of was how many hills there were to climb to the “best views” and how much walking the city required.

All told – I had less than 22 hours in Prague (including sleep), so I had to hit the highlights quickly and make sure I got the most bang for that 22 hours I possibly could.

Though the day was very overcast, something about that just really worked with the city – especially for photos! I feel like viewing Prague in sunlight just wouldn’t look as good, but who knows.

On to the photos! Hope you are having a great weekend!

-Andrew J.

First goal for the day – the castle atop Prague. Best views of the city in my opinion and walking around that area I feel really gives you a feel for Prague.

A great view of Prague from the castle in the first photo

The statues on the St. Charles Bridge are amazing! This is one of my favorite photos that I took that day.
I really wished I had more time to frame this shot up with the entrance to the bridge – but there were just too many people and the bride and groom were HAULING lol. Never the less, I still like the photo 🙂

Arguably my favorite picture of the day — it just really says “Prague” to me lol. Seems like spies could be exchanging secrets on the bridge behind me as I took this.Another kinda cool moment – while walking across another bridge to get wide shots of St. Charles I looked down and noticed that these art students were sketching the bridge and the statues. I have to say… their classroom beats those in the US.

And of course – a wide shot of the St. Charles Bridge!

The sun went down rather quickly and I found myself really feeling like I was in Eastern Europe… a little sketch at times lol. However, even amidst the kind of creepy vibe of the empty streets, I thought it was still really beautiful!

NO idea how they cooked this “steak” but it was seriously the MOST delicious dish of the entire trip. The steak itself was great, but the sauteed vegetables under the steak were absolutely amazing!!!

Finally – the morning view from my hostel before leaving for Venice to catch the boat to Greece! Next two installments, coming up ;)!

SPRINGTIME IN PARIS | PHOTOS LONG OVERDUE

While berating myself over the fact that I have not updated since before Christmas – I was going through some old blogs and had a VERY troubling revelation… I NEVER POSTED PHOTOS FROM EUROPE!!!

So here is the first installment, of the first location (if you followed the Youtube channel, it will be fun to put photos with the video!) – PARIS!

Enjoy the photos – the really is nothing like Paris in the Spring.

-Andrew J.

What is Paris without their tulips?

Lovers under the Eiffel TowerRecreating a VERY old picture from when I was like 16 in Paris with Angelique… do not judge my fashion sense… I was packing for speed not style.The three amigos of Paris!View of the Eiffel Tower from a fantastic grassy knoll where Tyler, Angelique and I enjoyed hotdogs made with french baguette and spicy mustard!The Sacre CoeurWho is that stylish French girl anyhow? Oh, I know – Angelique!
Finally, a very stylish French man – which if you cannot find one in the 16th arrondissement – they simply do not exist.

CHRISTMAS HAS BEGUN

Tonight we had our “Family Christmas” at theJones household. LOTS of goodies are already here — I won’t spoil the post-Christmas post, but I had to share the following gift because I have been obsessed with it since I was in Chicago and first saw it.

An absolutely amazing dark green military trench from Topman! (paired with some great tan driving gloves I picked up not long ago)

Also in the picture – my sister’s new Brahmin purse that she cannot seem to put down lol.

Thought it was ironic I was wearing a Peace T-Shirt under the military jacket lol.

To think – this isn’t even the end!  feel so blessed, can’t even imagine what is next to come!

Merry Christmas – and as we said at the end of tonight “God Bless Us, Every One!”

-Andrew J.

THE DARKEST DAY OF THE YEAR

In case you haven’t heard – today is the darkest day of the year – December 21st. So I thought a quick post was in order to mark the occasion… and naturally, I thought all black was in order lol.

I just got back from LA last night after a FANTASTIC week trip. A lot happened, much of which wasn’t planned lol, but I cannot wait to go back in January 🙂

I’ll be posting pictures from the trip soon – though actually I only took a couple … bad blogger I know. Hope you have a VERY Merry Christmas!!!

-Andrew J