Ben-B-Bloggin

Well I’m planning on another bike tour in 2009, the dates or the route have not been finalized but I’m planning for doing this tour in Switzerland.      This time I plan on keeping a better record of my journey,  I’ll have my gps and I hope to create maps of my progress.   I’m looking into different tracking websites and I’m going to be testing them using my bike tour of the Rhine river in 2007. Below is day 1 our my trip, from Basel to Freiburg.

to start thinking about christmas right.

thats why i have begun my 2008 x-mas list.  its short but its to keep a list of the toys i would like in 2008-09

1.  Highend Camara

2.  swiss army knife

3. HD tv.

more to come.

Ben

My latest update is from John and I very short trip to Corfu.  Short maybe but definitely not lacking in excitement department.  Our weekend can be summed up pretty much like this.  Meeting some Cali chicks waiting for the late bus to the Brindisi port, normal Italian chaos at the port, meeting some crazy aussie, playing poker with the aussie and two Italians, trying to sleep on the loudest most uncomfortable deck, waking up to watch the sun rise,  walking the extremely wrong direction to leave the port, losing the aussie, having breakfast,  finding our hotel, rented some Vespas, driving them to the ground. having to push our cracked up Vespa up the hill while getting screamed at by every passer by, seeing about 10 different beaches, experiencing the joy of having a taxi driver desert us, not finding a taxi,  falling a sleep on the side of the road,  getting sunburned,  eating about 5 Gyros, having to sit at very ugly dirty port for about 4 hours, ferry cabin having a broken lock,  getting kicked out of another taxi and finally making it to work on Monday.  All in All a pretty good weekend.    

John did i miss anything???

Well I managed to screw up my Flickr sidebar.  sorry,   but don’t worry you can still check out my photos on my photos page.

later

B

Hey Everyone,

I must say after all the changes going on in my life, I must admit that I sort of forgot about my website. but no longer, today I updated the backend of my blog to the latest version of Wordpress. it was long over, I don’t think I had updated the software since I installed it years ago.

The new version brings promises of easier blogging so hopefully I will post on this site more often. We’ll just have to see.

In other news it looks like my cousin John, I mean ONE of my cousin’s name john, will be flying over the pond to have a little trip in Europe, hopefully he won’t forget that I have moved from German to Italy and that we can meet.

I’ll keep you posted.

Regards,
Ben

Today was my first day of work at my new job in Brindisi.
to be honest I didn’t do much, just sat at a computer and surfed the internet. I’m still waiting for security clearance, and a new badge so I can walk freely on the base, but at least the job sounds interesting.

I’m still looking for an apartment, but I think I’ll make the final decision today, probably pick one that is close to the office.

Well its been a while since my last update, but thats because I’ve been pretty busy.
As you may be aware, I spend most of January away from Bonn. I was in Switzerland’s for a while and then the states after that. My time in the states was pretty well spent.

I got to see my cousin and aunt, even though not under the best of situations,
I got to meet Ricks new baby boy Aden for the first time.
I finally nailed down a topic for my masters.
I got a new contact offer
I went on a month long shopping spree

and finally I found a new apartment.

That pretty much sums up my January. not bad.

In other news, I’ll be back in the US from Feb. 29 till march 20th. So if you want to try and meet me this time. let me know.
After that I plan on starting my new job on April 1st. wish me luck.

later
Ben

Hey Everyone,

Just to let you know, I’ll be in Arizona from January 7th to January 23rd. book your appointments now.
Ben

hey everyone,
It’s been a while since I posted any news so I guess it’s about time.

I’ve been pretty busy traveling around this summer, it seems like I went everywhere. In September, I ended my trip to Cyprus, and then spent a weekend in Italy and Switzerland, which would have been a pretty good month, but I’m not finished, as next week I’ll head off to Tunisia. I’m really excited about that.

As I mentioned above, a weekend ago I was in Italy (Milan) and Switzerland (Brig), which was a very nice trip. In Milan I really didn’t do much, Catherine and I met up and we just walked around, took in some sights, complained and then didn’t even buy anything. The weather was perfect though. The next day we went canyoning in a gorge near Brig. I’m really sure if canyoning is the right term, but that’s what I call it. My definition of “Canyoning” is when you put on a wetsuit and a helmet, drive up to the top of a canyon and the walk/hike/jump/swim and climb down the canyon. When I first signed up to go I had imaged that we would be walking down some kind of path, man was I wrong.
The trip started out easy enough, we packed our bags with all our supplies and then started walk down a path, and this took about 45 minutes before our first break. That’s where the fun started, during the break and began to change into our wet suits and get ready for the real adventure ahead. It was now time to get into the water, the water by the was ice cold, as it’s a runoff from a glacier, but with the wet suit on it wasn’t bad at all, the worst part being when you come out of the water, a little bit of water would get in between the wetsuit and your skin, man that was cold, you could feel it run all the way down your body.
At the begging the trip was fun, until we got to the first part where we needed to use a rope to climb down. For me the every time we had a use a rope I was terrified, climbing down a slippery cliff with ice cold water hitting pounding on you as you slowly descend down, depending on a 65 year old man to hold you, a rope, a piece of metal and harness to hold you, your life is literally in this guys hands. Oh man was it scary, the worst drop was estimated to be over 30 meters/100 feet deep, all I know was when I looked down, I couldn’t see the bottom. I somehow survived, but not unscaved, because on every climb down I would slip and injure something, my shin, hands, back something.
But my biggest injury came at the end of the trip, we were now out of the canyon walking on a path 30 mins till the end when I slipped on a rock. I fell straight down and cut my figure pretty deep. I don’t think I have seen so much blood come out of my body so fast, and it was just a cut on my small finger, but it was actually squirting out. Luckily our guide had some bandages and he fixed me up.

Well that’s my update for now; I hope to add some pictures soon.
Next week I’ll be in Tunisia, woo hoo a new land and continent.
Take care.

Hey Everyone, I’ll be in Cyrpus all next week for work. I’ll miss you all.

later
Ben

Just a quick update on my life.

for the last few weekends, the last 4 of out 5, I’ve been out in about.
starting in mid July I was in Switzerland, Ibiza, Dresden and Bucharest, its a rough life sometimes!!!

This weekend basketball starts up again, lets hope my team is ready.
you can check out the pictures, they all been uploaded.

talk to you later
Ben

ps I’m planning few trips in September, one to Italy and Switzerland, one to Greece, also I have a mission planned to Cyprus in late August. I guess I’ll be pretty busy.