Ben-B-Bloggin

I added the remainding pictures of my recent bike trip, I havent had time to go threw and label them all but a few are done. I also scanned some old pictures that I had been meaning to scan for ages. You can find them on my flickr site. http://www.flickr.com/photos/benbjamin

later
Ben

Well everyone after 2 weeks of bike riding that including five countries, Switzerland, Germany, the Netherlands, and Belgium, today I’m back at work. I greeted by a catastrophic server crash woo hoo, that consumed my whole day.

Welcome back Ben!!!

I’ll have the some new pictures and some diary entries up soon.

B

Well after a week of bike riding I’m home safe in bonn. My bike ran great, no real problems to report, my bike cpu did stop functioning for a while at thats a little bit of a bummer. I don’t know exactly how many Km’s I went. I’m sure I did more than 650.

Now its on to stage two of my trip. thats from here Bonn to Rotterdam. I think its a shorter trip so maybe I’ll ride there and back.

some stats
shortest ride: 82 Km Basel to Frieburg
longest ride: > 160 KM Karlsruhe to Mainz

My weight is the exactly the same as a left. I im a little shocked but I hope its because I put on some muscle.

cheapest accomindation: Kiel (near Stassburg) 19 Euros.
most expesive accom. : Bringen on Rhine 35 Euros.
insert priceless joke here.

Nicest people: rural french.
meanest: overall german are pretty much the same.

Today I need to prepare for the Rotterndam trip. It raining today in Bonn so its just my luck that I’m home.
I’ll keep up posted on the next week of riding.
later
Ben

I’ve added pictures here http://www.flickr.com/photos/benbjamin/sets/72157600271360283/

Hey Everyone, yesterday I had my first real ride from Basel to Freiburg, its only about 80 KM, and it took me about 4 1/2 hours to get here. I’ll stay in Freiburg again tongiht and then tomorrow I’ll head off to Strausburg another 80km or so trip.

i’ll keep ya all posted.
Ben

So tonight at midnight I set off on a two week adventure where I plan on riding my bike from Switzerland to Bonn. I get on the night train from Bonn and arrive in Basel at 7 AM. I then park my bike and get on another train and head to Lausanne to visit a friend. My plan is to be back in Basel on Sunday night and start riding in morning. My first destination is Freiberg, it’s only about 70 KM from Basel so it shouldn’t be to hard of a ride. I will be going away from the ride so I expect it will be a little uphill.

I don’t know long that will take but I have contingency in place for both my trip running to long or I somehow get home earlier than I expected. The weather the last weeks hasn’t been great so I’m hopping for a little improvement in that department.

I as get ready to leave now I have taken all my vital stats.
Weight 91.9 Kilos; I expect I’ll lose a few kilos on the trip. The last time I was less than 90 Kilos, I think it was 2004.
My Bike Odometer currently stands at 3269 KM; I expect to add 450 or so kilometers to this total.

Well that’s about it, I try to update my blog along the way, but I’m also stealing a page from my dad’s book and taken with me a notepad so I can write a diary of my trip, while it happens. Hey I’m going to have a lot of free time right!

See ya soon.
Ben

I finally got around to updating my book list. I finished up a few of the books that I was reading (I have already forgot which ones they were) and I added some new books too, one is called Sam the Cat which I got for my bike trip the second is called Freakonomics and its on loan from Lis. I’ll also try to finish up Postmordem while on my trip.

Sam the cat is supposed to be a funny book about the male point of view. My favorite type of book, but so far this one has been a bomb, but I’m only a few pages into it so it still has a chance, the reviews were pretty good so I’m still hopeful.

Sorry dad I haven’t got around to The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter yet, I keep looking at it but never pick it up. I’m sure I will soon.

Take care
Ben

Hey everyone, last weekend the city of Bonn had it’s yearly Rhein N flammen event. Its pretty cool to when the weather is good, and this year the weather was great. The event is where everyone in this area comes down to the rhine to have a bbq and a bonnfire at the end the city wastes about 100 grand on fireworks. Actually I have no idea how much the fireworks cost. This year we had a nice group; Lis, tim, Hendryk, Katrin, Rita and myself. I was luckly enough to get an invite on one of the riverboats and I asked for gang to come along. We had a great time.

I have posted the pictures here.

Secondly, next week I’m taking vacation to go on what I hope will turn out to be a cool adventure. I’m taking my bike to Switzerland, by train and plan on riding it the 500 KM ~ 300 miles home. Since I’m going alone I should be to find plenty of time to update my blog to keep you all posted. Wish me luck, or more importantly wish for me to have good weather.

Ben

Well everyone, it has been a while since I posted something on this site, I even got a complaint from my dad.

Easter weekend is now over and as in the past, the funny thing is that I can’t remember what I did last year, but in Berlin 2005, Prag 2004, and this year were great weekends. This year my destination was Switzerland, I know, why didn’t I go to the beach. Instead, I choose skiing in the Alps.

I met a friend and she pretty much showed me all around the country, as my travels were pretty much a loop, I landing and left in Zurich. The days pretty much consisted of Bern, Skiing, Skiing, and Lucerne, even though saying Lucerne is pushing it, it was more like driving to Lucerne, hanging out for an hour or 2 and then getting a train back to Zurich.

Overall, it was a great trip; I have posted some of the pictures on my website.

My next big trip will be in May, where I’m planning on biking the Rhine starting and Basel and heading to Bonn. I could go a little further up the rhine maybe to the boarder and take a train home, who knows. I’m a little curious if I can manage being alone the whole time. time to find out.

later B

Ps If anyone knows what I did last Easter, please drop me a email, because I’m drawing a total blank.

Its been a while since I wrote anything on my blog. So I have a little catching up to do.
Let me start by telling everyone who reads my blog AKA my dad that my basketball season is now over.

As a team I think we probably had the best season in our club history, finishing second in the Bezirkliga.

For me personally i had an ok season, now a days I’m just happy not to get injured. I did a few game winning and saving shots this year so that was cool.

More to come soon, as I’m composing a write up of my easter travels.

Later
Ben

Its Karnival time in Germany, as well as everywhere else in the world that celebrates its. If I wasn’t so lazy I would put up a brief description of what Karnival is. I’m sure that if you would perform a search you’ll find all the infomation you would ever want to know about the event.

Anyway some of the pictures have been posted, check them out here.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/benbjamin/sets/72157594538734046/