This One Time | Comedy, Travel & Relationship Advice From Shevo

Full Show Script [Thai translated] EVO: As you heard in the opening clip, I got a new tattoo about a month ago. I've been considering it since before we left The States, and decided to pull the trigger here in Thailand. SHE: Seriously, that's a pretty weak pun, dude.  EVO: Noted.  SHE: Woodee from 84 Tattoo Andaman Ink -- that probably rolls off the tongue better in Thai -- did the work, which took about three hours. The first time. EVO: She said "first time" because when I went to get a little touchup on some lines and color... well. You'll hear. [Tattoo redo] EVO: Pretty sure that's Thai for "stupid Americans". We'll cover the dentist a little later. SHE: Woodee is a bit of a perfectionist and insisted on redoing ALL of the outline. All of it. AND the vast majority of the color work. It now looks even better, though I'm not sure Evo would have went back had he known he'd be back in the chair for another 2 hours, going over the same not-quite-healed body art. EVO: You know... Back in the

Full Show Script [Less of Me] EVO: If Phuket has a ubiquitous tourist attraction, it's elephant trekking. Billboards, in-hotel pamphlets, official-looking street signs... the message is clear. No trip to Phuket is complete without an elephant encounter. SHE: Rides on the backs of these majestic giants are offered by tour operators large and small, typically with elephants on display right next to the road. And typically with several tour vans offloading eager participants, ready for a slow, plodding journey up the side of hill under elephant-power. EVO: That's exactly what we found as we were scootering our way up to The Big Buddha statue (and yes, it's exactly what it sounds like). We stopped, took some pictures, even shot a video with the elephants ... and then felt kinda bad about it. We, unlike most people, are aware of the controversy surrounding elephant tourism. SHE: But LIKE most people, we didn't know all that much about the problem. However, this was an opportunity for us to dig a l

Full Show Script [witty things] EVO: We were in a bit of a funk last week, as you likely noticed. SHE: And the word "funk" is being generous. We were getting downright depressed. EVO: So to get out of the funk, and to keep our promise of new scenery, we hopped on a bus for a five-ish hour ride down to Phuket. [welcome to Phuket] SHE: See? We're in a better mood already.  EVO: Gill and Yince, the names we mentioned in that last clip, are two of the dozen or so expats we've met over the last 2 months we've spent in Ranong, Thailand. They meet as a big group every week -- twice a week, actually -- for beer, food, and conversation. OK, mostly beer. And food. The conversation is interesting, as they're all speaking English with a host of different accents. Currently, we're the only American accents in the bunch. SHE: Our original intention was to bring you some of the interviews with those guys -- the Ranong Throng as Evo calls them. But we're pretty sure at least some of them are on the lam.

Full Show Script [six month slump] SHE: Hold on. Before we start the show: two things. EVO: First, a HUGE thanks to Jessica, Rocco, JP, Jeff, Don, & Mica for recently signing up to get a post card from us each month. It's really the only way this show brings in income (and we're going to talk about income today), so we greatly appreciate your pledges. For the rest of you lot now feeling guilty, ShEvo.wtf/postcards is where you can sign up. Ya cheap bastards. SHE: Second, this episode is going to be a little... weird. It's probably not the best experience for first time listeners. Maybe try the one with us riding in the back of the police truck in Thailand, or our beer walking tour in Spain. Once you know the kind of show we produce, come back and listen to this episode. It'll make more sense.  EVO: Can we let Patrick do his thing now? SHE: By all means. [intro] EVO: So yeah. Weird. As you heard, it's been six months, almost to the day, since we took off and left damn near everything --

Full Show Script [not helping] EVO: If you missed our last couple shows, opportunity has brought us to Thailand, a country we didn't know all that much about. Hard pressed to identify it on a map, we'd have found the general area, but probably confused it with Myanmar or Cambodia. That's not a fact that makes us proud, and we're working on correcting it.  SHE: We had a lot of misconceptions about Thailand. Some of those misconceptions were rectified the moment we looked it up on a map. Like the size of the country, for instance. If you're thinking Thailand is a small country, you're wrong:  [nevada-sized lamb chop]         SHE: We never did write the blog post, but we did the research.  EVO: And it's a good thing I didn't bet myself, because "that big lamb chop looking weird thing" that makes up the bulk of Thailand's area *is* Nevada sized... and then some. Overlaid on a map, it pretty much covers Nevada, bulges into Utah, and gets into California and Arizona. And that's not even counting t

Full Show Script [move up side] EVO: I'm just going to come out and say it: There are a myriad ways that Thailand has already tried to kill us. And we've only been here for a month.  SHE: We're here on an extended house-sit for an ex-pat French couple, Camille and Franck, while they're away on holiday. They've somehow managed NOT to die in the four years they've lived here, so Evo might be exaggerating the death-risk just a tad. EVO: Every time we go out on their scooter, we're flirting with death. Traffic lanes are mere suggestions, one-way streets become two-way at certain parts of the day. And they drive on the "other" side of the road in Thailand. Notice how I've learned not to call it the "wrong" side. You're welcome, England! SHE: OK, the scooter is a little nerve wracking, I'll give you that. There seems to be special rules for scooter drivers, like driving against the flow of traffic, turning out of any lane they damn well please, and flowing around stopped cars to bunch up at the cro

Full Show Script [top secret] Evo: If you're following our blog, you've probably read the account of our ride in the back of a cop truck on my birthday. Never a dull moment with us, right? She: And chances are, you thought Evo was adding a few embellishments to the tale. Well... not this time. He really couldn't, because we recorded the whole thing. Evo: And we're sharing that recording with you today. No, this isn't us just narrating the blog post. This is the live event as it unfolded, annotated for clarity. This should kick the whole "living vicariously through us" experience up a notch. She: Let me set the stage: We'd been in Thailand for about a week or so and on a whim decided to take a two-day trip to a little island off the coast before the rainy season truly kicked in. Somehow, after missing our ferry ride, we wound up in the back of a police truck. Confused? So were we... [Act 1] She: She's not a cop. But it does seem like she has a way to get us to the island. Evo: So now I'

Full Show Script [simple creature] Evo: So... that was Europe. 7 countries visited in 129 days of travel. We could do the math to uncover how many miles we traveled, but there are some other figures we think you'll find more interesting. Ones that have to do with money, not distance. She: First, the cost of travel. Getting to and traipsing about Europe has to be expensive, right? Evo: Not really. When we added up the numbers, our big travel costs -- five separate trips by plane, and another five unrelated trips by train to different destinations -- the total came to $3600. Yes, for both of us. And yes, that included getting to Europe from America. No, we didn't cash in frequent flier miles or fly on a friends-and-family ticket. Sheila's just really good when it comes to travel planning. She: And then there's the cost of lodging. 129 nights on vacation should add up quickly, right? Evo: Again, not really. Not when you get rooms the way we do. Unlike train and air tickets, we get a lot of fre

Full Show Script [no speed limit] Evo: When we left you last week, we were on the island of Mallorca, wrapping up our epic tour of Spain.  She: For the geographically challenged, Mallorca lies almost directly south of Barcelona, roughly halfway between Europe and Africa. Evo: Beware of salt-stealing pirates from Africa! She: Yes, everyone remembers your fascination with pirates from a few shows back. Can you get on with your commentary on Mallorca? Evo: Right, Mallorca. At twice the size of Oahu (that's where Honolulu is) it's the largest of the Balearic Islands and a hot-spot for international tourism. Once you get a look at the emerald colored seas and stunning limestone cliffs, you'll know why. If you're picturing a perfect Mediterranean paradise, it'll look a lot like Mallorca. She: It's also just the right spot to open up a craft beer brewery. At least that's what Sven did when he opened up Forastera. You remember Sven from last week's show: [Sven again] Evo: That Sven. As you m

Full Show Script [good stuff] EVO: It's June. Holy crap. That's almost five months of traveling the world. Doing exactly what we want to do every moment of every day, as we fully embrace our Opportunistic Travelers lifestyle. SHE: Every moment? What about the "moments" spent at doctor visits? Or the "moments" we spent camped out in the bathroom waiting for, uh, tummy issues to take their course? EVO: Well obviously not those parts. SHE: And what about the days you spent whining non-stop about travel coordination, delayed flights, or sitting on an airplane for 9 hours straight? EVO: OK, OK... I'm embellishing a bit. Still, you gotta admit, with those few exceptions, we're living a very fortunate life. SHE: And that's the story we want to highlight on this show. Fortune and fortunate don't always go hand in hand, but sometimes they do, as we discovered at the Marimurtra Botanical Gardens in Blanes, Catalunya. [fortune vs fortunate] EVO: The garden itself is as stunning as it is expansi

Full Show Script [Friendly] EVO The coastline of Costa Brava --- all of coast of the Mediterranean, in fact -- is lousy with castles. Piracy was a big deal (like the Salt Stealing Pirates from Africa we mentioned on last week's show) just a few centuries ago. Fortifications to defend against attacks were built along almost literally every turn of the coastline. Amazingly, many are still visible today, in various states of ruin. SHE: A few weeks ago, we took a half-day boat tour out of Blanes, Spain with a company called Charter Lloret. It was just us and six other TBEX attendees, as well as the captain and his assistant, on a leisurely boat tour up the Costa Brava shoreline. As we boated along the beach of LLoret de Mar, Evo asked about the story behind the oddly well maintained, almost brand new looking castle right on the edge of a cliff. [pre made] SHE How disappointing. A "fake" castle, decades, not centuries old, built just to give tourists something to take photos of. EVO: But the oth

Full Show Script [Die in the desert] EVO: The Mediterranean sea is pretty salty, about 15% higher in salinity than the Atlantic. That's mostly due to evaporation -- the Mediterranean is very shallow and is connected to the Atlantic by only a tiny, 13 km wide channel between Spain and Africa. SHE: On the Spanish coast midway between Barcelona and Valencia, the Ebro river has been depositing silt and sand for countless years, creating a huge delta jutting out into the Mediterranean. Not unlike the Mississippi delta in Louisiana. 3 EVO: This area is called Terres de l'Ebre, literally the land created by the Rio Ebro. On the coast, it's mostly a collection of farms all dedicated to rice production, consisting of 35 square kilometers of perfectly flat -- and kinda boring -- rice patties. But centuries before, the big cash crop was salt. SHE: Tucked between rice fields with little in the way of signage is the old Tancada saltworks. An interpretive center was built to preserve and educate visitors a

Full Show Script EVO: We're in Costa Brava, a beautiful beachside area just outside of Barcelona, Spain. We've been attending the TBEX Europe conference all week, and have been recording lots of audio to bring to you on future shows. Seriously. We've got some great stuff here.  SHE: This week, we bring you a special musical edition, featuring a range of street musicians we've recorded during our travels. These are the actual recordings of the musicians on the street, not ripped from their CDs.  EVO: The idea first came to me in Brussels, where I recorded this sax player on the street as Sheila was popping in and out of stores. Yes, he knew we were recording. And I tipped him, too. In fact, we make sure to tip all the performers, and make sure they know that we're recording. No international incidents, especially over copyright.  [Brussels sax] EVO: We found this accordion player outside the Sheffield, England train station. He's featured in one of Sheila's One Minute Memories videos, but t

Full Show Script [not lost] EVO: It's our second week in Santiago de Compostela, a medieval city in the northern part of Spain that also serves as the capital of the autonomous region known as Galicia. This a hilly and heavily wooded area of the country, and it’s set up quite nicely for tourism. SHE: If, by tourism, you mean the Camino. Santiago is a cool city with lots of nooks and crannies to explore... but almost every activity here centers around and caters to the Camino. You're either here for that, or you're likely not choosing Santiago as your destination. EVO: But here we are, and taking a religious pilgrimage doesn't sound like a good time. Or practical, since this is the end of The Way. So instead, we indulged in one of our favorite types of tourism -- beer tourism. Yes, it's a thing. No, it's not quite a thing in Galicia just yet. But it will be. There are already some 20 small craft breweries cranking out cervexa artesan, and several bars and bottle shops have popped up that cate

Full Show Script  [mi español es muy mal] EVO: ¡Viva España! Of all the countries in the first leg of our world tour, this is the one I, personally, was most excited about. The food, the culture... SHE: ... the warm weather... EVO: Right, that helps, too. And it doesn't hurt that I speak a little Spanish. SHE: Oh, whatever! I've seen you consult Google Translate like every time you've tried to talk with someone that doesn't speak english. Spending 20 minutes a day on Duolingo a few times a week does not a fluent Spanish speaker make. EVO: Hey, don't spoil the illusion. These people look up to me! SHE: Whatever. But speaking of giving good advice, this trip does let us test out some of our earlier assumptions. We're hopping back into the Schengen area. You'll recall from an earlier show that here's a limited amount of time we're allowed to stay in this area of Europe. We should be nowhere near the limit on our number of days, but there's also a very good chance we've misinterpreted the rule

Full Show Script [pull my finger] EVO: Our last show might have left you with the impression that there's nothing to do in Sheffield other than drink beer. True, they do have a brewery inside their train station. And it's also true that we sought shelter from the elements in more than one pub. But the weather got better, and we were able to leave the relative safety of the pubs to see more of the city. SHE: Sheffield isn't exactly a hotbed of tourist activities, but it's not without its own attractions. EVO: We took our new friend Kath -- she's the astrophysicist who bought us lunch last week -- and her husband Jeremy up on their offer to for an evening out. The destination was Owlerton Stadium, the local dog racing track. Sheila's recently departed grandmother was a huge fan of watching the greyhounds run, so our visit with Kath and Jeremy felt a little like we were paying our respects to her at the same time. This one's for you, Jeri.   [Race]  EVO: By our voices, you might think we had lo

Full Show Script [CLIP: starvation] EVO: There are lots of ways to travel. And I don't just mean by air, rail, or boat. I mean the intent of the travel. Ours is based on opportunity. Which means we go where the opportunity takes us.  SHE: Currently, we're housesitting. Typically, this isn't what most of you think of when you think of travel. We go where the housesitting assignments are. This can be limiting as wintering in Jamaica isn't always -- and certainly wasn't -- an option. EVO: But housesitting almost eliminates the "I-don't-know-where-do-you-want-to-go?" discussions that make vacation planning a pain. For us, it's lead to some amazing opportunities. But it's still weird, so we find ourselves explaining how it lets us travel around the world. Here's a quick conversation we had over lunch with Katherine Inskip, an astrophysicist we met from the University of Sheffield. And thanks for lunch, Kath! [CLIP: wharncliffe side] EVO: Which brings us, a travel blogger and a travel photographer

Full Show Script [fundamentally wrong] EVO: If you had to pick a time to travel northern Europe, you probably wouldn't pick winter. But we're owning the name The Opportunistic Travelers, and this is where the opportunity took us. SHE: And it's not like we were at the North Pole or anything. Compared to The northeastern part of The States, it's not that bad here in Europe. It's been manageable. The calendar tells me it's spring now, but I'm not sure I believe it, based on what I'm feeling when I'm outside. However, the buds on the trees tell me that spring is just around the corner. EVO: We've been in England for over a month now. So we can say with at least some authority that England's bad rap for its food and its weather is mostly deserved. Or as Cousin Avi said it: [england] EVO: Well, not just London. North West England and Yorkshire too.  SHE: We've had mixed results with the food in England. Some of it has been amazing. And some of it not so much. One of my favorite foods of all time

Full Show Script [permit only] EVO: Today is  the final day of our stay in Knutsford. As you've heard and seen, we've made fast and hopefully long lasting friends with of many of the locals.  SHE: According to those friends, we've achieved minor celebrity status. More than once this week, we were approached by locals stating "Oh, you're the American's everyone is talking about." Except they said it in an authentic English accent. Not my poor facsimile. Last night at open mic night, as song after song was dedicated to us, the performers we'd met were telling the audience to follow our blog and listen to this podcast. Crazy! EVO: Hey, if we have to get new listeners and readers one small English town at a time, I'll take it. We didn't know what to make of Knutsford when we first arrived, with it's odd mix of old money, nuevo riche, farmers, and regular blokes. But it's turned out to be an amazing experience, and one we'll likely come back for. Because they like us. They really like us! If you visit Knuts

Full Show Script [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.