It’s been almost 2 months since Romania is in lockdown. The parks are closed, there are no more concerts or cultural activities, all malls and big stores are closed (except for supermarkets), restaurants are closed, everything’s closed.
People are allowed to get out of their homes only for grocery shopping or emergencies. The streets of Bucharest (a city with a population of 2 million people) are empty.
According to tomtom.com, Bucharest is the 14th city with the most traffic in the world, ranking just below Bangkok and Mexico City. These days, Bucharest is empty.
When there were only a few hundred COVID cases, our Government decided to implement the lockdown and Romania is one of the few countries in Europe with only a few hundred cases per day. It seems that we are some of the lucky ones.
Even though I dealt remarkably fine with the first month of lockdown (given the fact that I usually travel a lot), the second month really got to me. I started getting bored of sitting inside my 2-bedroom apartment.
Even though I spent my time working on this blog and creating content, the daily routine started to play with my brains. I am not the kind of person that usually spends days in a row inside the house.
I like to travel, to spend the weekends visiting new places in Romania, and doing short road-trips. I usually visit my parents every one, one-and-a-half months.
Not being able to do all these things made me grumpy. Only Dan knows and can understand me when I say that you don’t want to be around a grumpy Aura.
So I decided that something needs to change. I have to find new activities or else I will go crazy. I started by including exercises in my daily routine.
I downloaded the Nike Training app and I started exercising for at least 10 minutes per day. After a few days, I decided that I should start running and maybe lose some weight and that’s how I got to an average of 30 minutes of exercises per day.
That’s a lot, given the fact that until then, the only form of exercise I made was getting out of bed to open the fridge and eat a snack.
After about 2 weeks of daily exercises, I discovered an awesome training Youtube channel and I started to get into more intense exercises. I also included some stretches in my routine and I am happy to report that for the first time in my life, I’m able to touch my toes from standing position.
Also, I noticed that I started feeling better and I also lost 2 kg which is kinda awesome. Since living in Bali, where all the food is super-tasty, I gained a few kg. Shedding these 2 kg is a big step towards my ideal weight.
Since dealing with quarantine got harder and harder for Dan too, we bought a 1000-piece puzzle. Well, it only took us 3 days (a total of about 10 hours) to finish the puzzle. Therefore, we now have to think about other activities to do together.
We already binge-watched too many TV series. We finished La Casa de Papel and Breaking Bad.
All in all, the quarantine was a major switch from our usual daily routines but we are super-grateful that our parents and loved ones are healthy. It seems that in just a few weeks some of the restrictions will be lifted in our country and we are looking forward to a little more freedom.
Blog updates
In case you haven’t noticed, Daily Travel Pill got a little makeover during the past 2 months. We updated the homepage and I started updating older posts.
My goal is to keep this website up-to-date since I know that many people rely on my travel guides to plan their vacation (maybe not that much right now due to everything that’s happening in the world).
My blog’s traffic is down. Almost all countries have travel restrictions in place and right now it’s not the time to think about vacations. However, I know that at some point the travel industry will recover and I’m getting ready for that moment.
Work on my blog goes as usual. I constantly create new content, I add blog posts about new destinations, and I try to keep up with the latest trends.
It’s not easy to keep your motivation levels up when your traffic is 90% down but I’m doing my best. I always said that I’m in the blogging business for the long run.
That being said, here are a few blog post that I wrote during the past few weeks.
- 50 most beautiful towns and villages in Europe
- 25 things that will happen once the lockdown ends
- How to score cheap plane tickets
- How to save money while traveling long-term
- 10 reasons why you shouldn’t visit the Philippines
- 25 free things to do in Lisbon
- Top viewpoints in Lisbon
- The most colorful street in Lisbon – Pink Street
- Lx Factory, Lisbon – is it worth visiting?
Thanks for reading my monthly updates. I hope that you’re safe and healthy. Be kind to yourself during this time. We all deal differently with this situation. If you need someone to talk to, write me an email!
May the travel bug bite you!
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Aurelia Teslaru is a professional travel blogger and the writer behind Daily Travel Pill. With a 4-year experience as a travel writer and photographer, Aurelia only shares travel guides about destinations that she visited.
She has been to more than 40 countries during the past 10 years and aims to explore 50 countries before turning 30 years old. Aurelia is a digital nomad who transformed her passion for travel into a lifestyle. Read more about her here.
To follow her adventures, check out her Instagram and Facebook pages!