Weighty topics, indeed. But everything goes better with pie, especially when there's music at the end.
[idiots]
EVO: We're still in Knutsford, a small town outside of Manchester. That strangely enough has a McLaren, Rolls-Royce, Bentley, and Land Rover dealership. Crazy!
SHE: This last week took us to several different cities in north western England. In Chester, we drank and ate at The Brewery Tap. They have a decent beer selection. Perhaps one day we'll develop a better appreciation for this "Real Ale" stuff.
EVO: But like all pubs in England, they also have Sheila's favorite -- fish and chips -- and a few oddities on the menu that looked interesting to me. They don't look that great to Sheila, which probably threw her off when I suggested she place our order:
[paying attention]
EVO: So now, who's not paying attention.
SHE: Uh huh. This probably isn't a battle you want to have, Mr. Forgetful.
EVO: Probably not. But the black putting was as delicious as it was beautiful. I posted a photo on Instagram. Yes, I'm that tourist. And the fish and chips were great, if not monstrous in size. They grow their haddock pretty big over here.
SHE: Evo's into strange food. Being a vegetarian, my choices are limited. Nothing that flies or walks on the land. So when he suggested we go to a place that sells meat pies, I was dubious. Even the vegetarian options didn't sound all that great. Pie, is pie. As in cherry. And chocolate. And now, as it turns out, mushrooms and asparagus? Oh, and then mash and peas came up, too.
[mash and peas]
EVO: The establishment we visited was called Pi. That's P.I. not P.I.E. I was a little disappointed that they didn't have geometry references in the building, but such is life. What they did have, was an excellent beer selection, fantastic pies, and lovely vegetarian gravy, that Sheila totally missed out on.
[gravy]
SHE: You can keep the gravy, as I know I'm not a fan. What I am a fan of, however, is Thai food. And since we're going to be spending three months in Thailand not long from now, we needed to visit the consulate to sort our our Visas.
EVO: Not being super experienced in dealing with consulates -- as in we've never visited one -- we weren't sure what to expect. Would we have to convince the Thai ambassador we were worthy of staying in their country that long? Well.., no we wouldn't. The process was quite easy, thanks to the extremely helpful visa officer David Hughes from the Royal Thai Consulate. And if that doesn't sound like a Thai name to you...
[double entry]
SHE: With David's help, we walked out with our Thai visas, set up to stay all the way through the end of September if we so choose. Nothing like a visit to southeast Asia in the middle of the rainy season! Still, it'll be warm. And we're ready for that!
EVO: Monday, the 16th of March, marks the three month anniversary of the ShEvo Studios World Tour. Six countries visited. Over 10,000 kilometers traveled. Two hours and 15 minutes of produced audio for you to enjoy. And some 40 hours of raw audio slogged through to find those two hours of content.
SHE: The good news is that we've also experienced over 90 brand new beers since we've been out of the country. We've dined at over 50 pubs and restaurants, and met countless new friends. Evo and I are loving this adventure, and we're thrilled you've decided to tag along.
EVO: But there's a little uncertainty about the scale and relevance of this project. I'll explain in the next clip but it's a little noisy. But this is really important to us, so we hope you'll struggle through the muddy audio.
[existential crisis]
SHE: So that there's no confusion: we're not stopping. Nor are we changing the format anytime soon. But we do think about what we're doing and how it fits in with the larger ecosystem of content. This show, and even our website, doesn't quite fit the mold. No problem for either of us, as we like being different. But it does make it difficult to answer the question of "so what do you do?" that continues to come up. Calling ourselves "travel bloggers" sure doesn't seem to fit. And "house sitters" is an immediate conversation killer. So what are we?
EVO: That's a question I've struggled with for... ever. I'm growing attached to the term Opportunistic Travelers. That sounds like a conversation starter.
SHE: And this doesn't sound like a happy note to end the show on. So we'll play you a little bit of Adam Armstrong's music. He's a local musician we met on Thursday night in the middle of our kidnapping. As in we were kidnapped by the locals, and forced to drink a lot of beer. Friday was rough. But thanks for a great time to both Matthews, Nikki, & Sally for dragging us along, and to the musicians David, Chris, Joe and the others for the solid entertainment. Especially to Joe for buying Evo's guitar. And no, I'm not selling mine.
EVO: We'll let Adam finish out the show, so I need to do "the business real quick: Bed music is by On the Ground by Kevin McCloud. The music you're about to hear was written and preformed by Adam Armstrong. Find him on Facebook at AdamArmstrongMusic. Everything else is owned by us and is made available as a creative commons attribution, non commercial no derivative license. Shevo.wtf for more details. I'll shut up now and let Adam roll us out with Do What It Takes, live from Lord Eldon. Cheers from Knutsford!
New episodes of the ShEvo Studios On Tour Podcast are available every Sunday. Of course, Sunday can be a very different thing depending on where we are in the world. Cheers!
