• Leading up to March 16th, 2011
My teaching job in Vermont was coming to a close and I decided I wanted to come to Europe. I discovered helpx and thought that was the coolest shit I had ever heard of and I started sending out messages across western Europe. I had sent out messages to Germany, Austria, France, Spain, and Italy before I got sick of sending messages for the night. By the next day I had received a response from Austria and my fate my sealed.
• March 16th, 2011
I arrived in Austria at an organic self-sustaining farm by the name of Al Ma'awa nearby the Austrian town of Melk. This would be my home base for about five months.
• April, 2011
I took a trip to Rome, Italy for ten days with a Romanian/Hungarian guy I met at Al Ma'awa.
• June 16th, 2011 (give or take a few days)
My allotted time as an American within the Schengen Area was up and I was officially illegal. I didn't give a shit and kept staying.
• End of June, 2011
I took a trip into the Alps to find me some sheep.
• Mid-September, 2011
I decided to change bases and moved up north near the Czech border to stay with an Austrian blacksmith.
• End of September, 2011
I traveled to Croatia with the blacksmith where I got caught at the Slovenian-Croatia border. The guard ended up looking the other way and I decided it was time to get my paperwork in order.
• November, 2011
I went to Vienna to battle with the bureaucracy for a resident permit. It took a fucking month apply, and I had to become a student again to do so. When I finally finished the application I was told it could take up to six months for it to process. After extended consecutive moments of vituperatiousness, I began searching for a place to stay outside of Schengen.
• Mid-December, 2011
With my allotted time near-up I was effectively banished from Schengen and I traveled to Romania to stay on another helpx site in a village near Targu-Mures (north Romania).
• Christmas(ish), 2011
I decided I didn't like the place I was staying at and followed a Turkish girl I had met down to Calafat, Romania (right on the border with Bulgaria).
• January, 2012
I wasn't really digging the situation in Calafat, so I found another helpx in Kardjhali, Bulgaria at the Happy Hippy Hostel.
• January, 2012, two weeks later
I really wasn't digging this helpx experience, either. Before I became a cryogenics experiment, I decided to call a friend of mine who has family in Turkey. I begged her to ask her family if I could come stay. I received a positive response and quickly found myself in Istanbul, where I was pretty much treated like a sultan for a month and a half.
• Beginning of March, 2012
I flew back to Vienna and successfully obtained my residence permit. This may have involved several rude gestures toward the bureacracy as I walked away. I immediately started going to school to learn German.
• May, 2012
Made my way down to Slovenia to visit and ended up building a house.
• Present
Still hanging out in Vienna and taking German classes until I decide otherwise.