Wait, Just Who the Hell Are You Guys?
Ant and I (Vyst) are two schmucks who grew up together in the little town of Arlington, Washington a bit north of Seattle. We had enough misadventures and near-death experiences during this time to come up with the motto: "Despite our best efforts, we're still alive. Better luck next time." Tumbling through forests, nearly falling off cliffs, falling off things one could describe as cliffs, swearing at each other through endless bouts of Halo, nearly blowing ourselves up with sparkler bombs, and being uncomfortably close to each other while wildly swinging and throwing machetes, we always managed get ourselves out of the trouble we had gotten into and come back and tell the story. At some point I even started referring to my "times-I-should-be-dead" list--a good percentage of which had happened in Ant's presence.
Left: Vyst, Right: Ant
Back in May of 2010 I decided to pack up my shit and leave to Vermont to say with some buddies who lived there. Not long after Ant did the same thing, but decided to head west to Hawaii. During this time he would often call me from the beach at midnight to tell me he was in his bathing suit drinking rum, while I was up to my eyeballs in snow at -20 ° F and a half-broken thermostat at home.
I think this gets the point across.
After living in Vermont for about a year I wanted to move again, and instead of going back home I just went farther east to Europe. Ant had a similar change of heart, and a few months after I left the country, he decided to visit one of our friends from high school, who works on the military base in Korea. Upon coming to Europe I began to write little blurbs about what I was doing and send them back to my friends and family with pictures. When I started, I thought I was bothering people by sending out group emails about the goofy crap I was doing in Europe, so I was surprised when I began to receive replies thanking me for sending out the stories, as well as requests for me to add more people to my mailing list. Ant, apparently seeing that I had come up with a good idea, began to write down his stories as well and started up his own mailing list.
These little blurbs began to get bigger and bigger and soon I was sending out 20-30 page PDFs to an ever-increasing audience with Ant not far behind me. Thus I decided to make a website for anyone on the internet to peruse our literary blunders and misadventures at their leisure. Now, because someone might not know who the hell we are, what our backgrounds are, and just what the hell is going chronologically in our stories (especially mine. I jump around a bit more), I decided that we should make outlines of our respective travels in Europe and Asia, as well as quick summaries of the events of our lives leading up to these travels. Especially mine as it's a bit... non-sequitor.
The primary tools I have been using for my travels have been the websites helpx and couchsurfing, as well as learning how to hitchhike. I haven't used it myself, but another well-known organization is WWOOF. Helpx and WWOOF are both organizations where you work on a farm (or something near it) in exchanged for food and a place to stay. Couchsurfing is a social network created to allow people a place to stay for free at someone's house when traveling for up to a few nights. With these resources I've basically been able to float around Europe with relatively little money, making new contacts to allow me to continue my stay.
Ant's primary tools for traveling seem to have been throwing himself to the wind--a tool which I have used myself often, but Ant seems to have solely relied on it.
In any case, here are the outlines.
Vyst's Rough Outline of Events in Europe
Vyst's Rough Outline of Events Leading-up to Europe
Ant's Major Events Over the Last Few Years
