Budapeshta Street

This is Budapeshta Street (named after Budapest), one of the most hipster areas of Sofia where the new and old live together. Lots of restaurants and small businesses and not as many tourists as elsewhere.

New graffiti, an old house, and a giant ancient hole between the two, filled with Roman ruins.

Quinces

Geo Milev, Sofia. Hard to find pretty things outside these days so here’s something that I didn’t expect to keep hanging. Felt like seeing creepy dolls.

A year in steps

I started building a walking habit about 2 years ago. I had this crazy annual goal to average over 10K steps per day for the whole of 2024. Happy to share that I could make it with room to spare.

Life is much easier if you don’t need to count your steps every day. It takes time and is often unpleasant. I tried all sorts of tricks, from waking early to spinning the treadmill in the evening. It was all inconvenient. Was it worth it – probably yes. Walking is like mild gym plus mindfulness combined. It unlocked hiking not just for me but also for my family. Helped me with the blog as well – lots of cool things and cats are just hanging out, waiting to be spotted.

My fitness goal for 2025 will be more complex.

  • I’ll try to climb Vihren (2 failed attempts in 2024)
  • I’ll try to keep an average of 10k/day for 2025 as well but increase the difficulty by doing more hiking and less city
  • I’ll try to add 1h/week of gym time, starting with body weight exercises like push-ups and plank. The 1h comes from the 7-minute-workout, 7×7 is 49, or roughly 1h. The idea is to build a habit this year rather than achieve any weight loss or body composition change.

Wish me luck.

The Mountain

The mountain was unwelcoming today for a second time in a row. We did a brief walk on the horizontal path for about 1.5h. The wind tried to blow us away, and the snow was just enough to make our hats wet. Our new 5-euro sunglasses from Decathlon that cover the side of the eye protected us from the wind very well but it was still unusually cold. The type of weather that makes you want to get out of the mountain as quickly as possible.

The happiest moment of the trip was when we boarded bus 66 and the hike was over 🙂