Week 13 – Syy/Reason Why

Hey Hey !!

That’s it, 3 months of traveling already. Across Italy and France. Our next destination ? Spain by the West coast.
Today we left just the two of us. Kris is on his way to Barcelona and hopefully all the to Morocco. Once again it was hard to say goodbye, to the beautiful place, to 3 wonderful nature lovers who hosted us for 2 weeks. Say bye to all their friends who welcomed us for parties like Tim and Ilana and our last supper, yesterday night. Bye to all those wonderful minds and ideas we shared. And of course bye to our amazing friend Kris Roche.

We have some new items in Skipper also! Tim and Ilana gave us a wonderful Indian string instrument and Kris left us a guitar he got from a guy in Italy. This is a traveling guitar that we will pass on when the moment is right 🙂 And who knows, maybe one day it will get back to Kris.
Like said, we will surely miss Denise, Tezz, Terry and our doggy friend Peggy. We had such a great time with them. One of the best things about this trip is meeting amazing people. We already have a handful of life lasting friendships.

We wrote this new song couple days ago. It is a song based on a poem by Eino Leino, a finnish poet.
Hope you’ll enjoy it as much as we enjoy knowing that you are out there somewhere, traveling with us and hearing what we have to say.

Avec amour,
Eva and Manu

If Only – Week 12

Hello!

Every time we upload new videos we are amazed how far we’ve come. Every single day we realize how beautiful the world is, how precious it is to discover new places and meet new people. Hear their stories. Last Friday we played a show at our friends, Tim and Ilana’s house. This weeks video is live from that show. It was cold and snowy outside, the candles were leading us to their secret place. As we got close to the door we heard people inside laugh and saw them enjoying food and wine totally free from the rest of the world, together just to exchange and listen.It was an old barn, with its warm wood stove and smooth lightning. There the three of us (Kris, Eva and Manu) sat down to play our songs as a songwriter circle, sharing our experiences and lives. People from the village sat on blankets and big pillows. We all arrived in a new dimension… it was beautiful, w couldn’t stop playing and they couldn’t stop listening.

It’s always where you don’t expect that best moments happen. This trip keeps on leading us to new creative and interesting places. All we have to do is trust and go with the flow.

This weeks video is a song called “If Only”. This was the first time we felt like this song really worked, something clicked musically and now, after playing it for over an year, it is ready for us.

Thank you for watching us, listening to us and giving us your support.
With all our love,
Eva and Manu

Where the eagles fly on the mountain high

Bonjour!

Literally, at the moment we are as high as the eagles and vultures live. Surrounded by bears and wolves, at about 1000m altitude next to the mysterious city of Tarascon-sur-ariege, a wonderful couple from England is hosting us. They are doing a beautiful work for the good of the nature; they protect the wildlife. They take care of all kinds of insects, make sure the butterflies have the plants and flowers they need and much much more. Terry has been working undercover as an animal cruelty spy and he wrote two books about his work. A job you definitely don’t see every day. His website is here, take a moment to learn about his projects against animal cruelty around the world  http://www.ruadan.co.uk/

Terry and Denise also host Eco Wildlife Tours, check out their website: http://faunus.co.uk/ Not only they work with these things, but they truly and honestly dedicate their whole life for the nature and animals. Have to say, the world needs these people.

As we drove down here, we passed probably the most mysterious and interesting area in France; Languedoc. That is where Catharism, Secret Orders, Knights and werewolves took place. We walked in Carcassonne, where the history never dies. The castle and the city itself has been kept in such great shape (for all the tourists 🙂 ). From far away ,Carcassonne looks like some kind of Fairy tale!

We are working in the woods and the boys have been cutting big trees down for two days now. Of course I wanted to show the women’s strength and I managed to cut one tree down! Yai! Manu was sick for couple of days but with the help of lemon and ginger he finally got better. Long live nature medicines!

We are working on the Week 12 song + video which will be up during the weekend, so stay tuned!
Until then, be safe and enjoy the days as they would be the most precious ones youll have.

With lots of love,
Eva and Manu

Week 11 – Nightingale (Norah Jones)

Helloooo,

How has your week been so far?

We’ve had the best weather ever for January, i mean it’s been over 15 every day. Since last video we drove a lot, crossed the border between Italy and France “again” and arrived to this new wonderful farm. It is very close from Vaison-la-Romaine which has a Roman amphitheater (into which we snuck in) and part of the city is Roman. There are also plenty of walks to do around that area and you’ll find yourself discovering ruins of any kind, especially castles. It’s Incredible !! We worked with another Helpx, Vinko from Croatia and learned how to renovate old stone walls and spend the whole week spreading plaster, Chaux and paint. He has a youtube channel where he explains how to do things, you should check it out : http://www.youtube.com/user/vinkokth
Oh and if that wasn’t good enough we’ve been eating amazing Thai food everyday. This trip really is full of surprises.

This week we wanted to cover an artist that really influenced our music, Norah Jones. It is a song from her first album called Nightingale. We are playing right front of the house we live in, if you notice the windows are blue! That is typical from this part of France that we call “Provence”.

We are still traveling with our friend Kris Roche and we are about to leave tomorrow to the next farm closer from Spain, next to the city Perpignan. We’ll stay there for about a week and… well you’ll see next week 🙂

Again, thank you for traveling with us.

With love,
Eva & Manu

How to make Bread in 3 minutes – Chapati –

Hey,

We just arrived to a new farm yesterday in South France, close to Orange. Like we said we will now start putting on recipes we’ve learnt on our trip.
This first one is a recipe we got from Alba, Italy. We asked our host for some bread and she showed us how to make our own in 5 minutes. Well it is actually more like Naan bread, it’s flat and Soooo Easy to do… they call it Chapati.

For about 12 Chapati, you need :

-Flour (250g or 2 cups)
-Olive Oil or butter (2 or 3 tablespoons)
-Warm water
-Salt to taste

Take a large bowl. Pour in the flour and then make a hole in the middle. Put the Olive Oil or the previously warmed butter and the salt. You need to put quite a lot, as you like. Then add warm water little by little while you stir. It needs to look like a paste that holds together!
Then simply cut pieces and flat them on the table using your hands or an empty bottle. It is best to roll them in Flour so they won’t stick.
Get your pan hot and dispose the flat bread on it without any oil, wait until it cooks to change side and it’s ready to be eaten.
You should be able to do quite a lot of them. It’s easy and very fast.

TIP : Add some Spices, like Curry or Herbe de Provence, Thyme whatever you like !

Here is our video that explains everything !
Stay tuned for the Week 11 video coming out this week end and for more goodies !!

With love,

Eva and Manu

“I’ve had enough” – Week 9/10

Dear reader,

and so after staying a whole month in Tuscany with our wonderful hosts Martina and Thomas Reinhardt, we started traveling again. We had wonderful time with them learning a lot about gardening, italian culture and life in general. We found a life longing friendship with Tommy, who showed us so many places and made us feel like home. In a nutshell, we were blessed to find Giardino Reinhardt!

To avoid the possible snow and cold weather, we started driving towards the west coast of Italy. The weather got warmer and warmer so we can actually survive over the night in Skipper! Our goal is to get to Spain as soon as we can so we’ve been driving around 7 hours a day. Luckily we have Chris to play some awesome songs at the back seat so driving never gets boring 🙂 We also have a bunch of good music carried by our iPods, including our good friend Megan Lui, who actually just released her first EP http://www.myspace.com/meganlui Check it out! We also rediscovered the beautiful sounds of Regina Spector, Ane Brun, Capercaillie http://www.capercaillie.co.uk/, rocky tunes of Johnny Lang and much more.

Like said, this weeks video was much delayed. It is a sum of many things but mainly because we couldn’t find internet anywhere. It’s off season so most of the places are closed. Not too many tourists hassling around though 🙂 We recorded the video already in Italy and now, finally, we found an open internet cafe to upload it for you. It is a song by Manu and we are more than happy to have our good friend Kris Roche on it. You can check his music and blog at http://livinginthemidst.tumblr.com/

Thank you for traveling with us.

With love,

Eva and Manu

Updates !! We are lost and can’t find internet.

Hello,

This week has been crazy, because it’s winter time everything is closed ! there is no internet cafe and the only one we found doesn’t have electricity plugs. Right now we are writing this post with 2 minutes left of battery. 🙂

Bare with us, we’ll upload the video soon !

Love,

Eva and Manu

Week 9 video with SPECIAL GUEST up soon!!

Salut, ciao, terve and hey.

Finally we are back in Italy, tummies more than full of christmas food, ready to continue our travel! We just packed Skipper and tomorrow we’ll hit the road towards South France and then Spain.

One more thing to add. We have one of the greatest, kindest, talented and most Japanese friend with us here. His name is Christopher Roche (aka Kris Roche) and we are more than SUPER excited to travel with him (though it might get a bit tight in Skipper 🙂 ).

The Week 9 video will be up either tonight or at least tomorrow, depending on the weather outside (very windy here). This weeks video is a song “I’ve had Enough” by Manu and we all three will be playing it. Chris bought a drum from Cairo just for that. So give us your support and once again, we are so thankful to have you traveling with us!

With love,

Eva and Manu