Day 21 - Birthday Day - Ljubljana, Slovenia

July 11, 2026 - biked 0 km (0 mi) - biked 932 km (579 mi) total

I ended this last decade biking and I’ll start this new decade doing the same. What can be better than doing what you love with the people you love? I’m grateful.

I chose to bike along the Mediterranean because I wanted to evoke the same connection to water I did when biked along the Pacific Ocean in my early 30’s. It doesn’t hurt that the Mediterranean Sea has the perfect water temperature.

I wanted to do this epic bike trip to prove that 40 isn’t too old to do epic physical challenges. I loved turning 10, 20 and especially 30, but forty is such a big number in my mind.

I witnessed a tragic 40th birthday party as a child. My uncle turned forty with black balloons, black cake and dark Over the Hill banners everywhere. Maybe there was a skeleton picture somewhere over the hill.

It was a surprise birthday party from his fellow teachers. But if you knew my uncle at all, you would know he hates any sort of attention, let alone this kind. He looked miserable and the dark decor shook me as a child. I thought, if I ever get to 40, that means I’m really old, one foot in the grave.

Well my big anticipated day arrived and it was filled with things and people I love. And most importantly it wasn’t macabre.

I woke up to breakfast in bed, a family tradition. I was offered eight different pastries, and garlic, onion and spinach egg scramble complete with a procured cappuccino.

At 11ish we all headed down to see the Ljubljana wind orchestra play a free concert under the London Plane trees. A flea market nearby sparked my interest and I found a simple silver ring as a spontaneous birthday present to myself.

After the concert, we headed to our reservation for wine tasting. We found ourselves pretty tipsy as we aren’t used to much day drinking, but my mom and Peter saved the day as they ordered bread and cheese for the table.

Day drinking requires a scheduled nap time. After the nap, I chatted with some siblings and then caught a 45 minute river boat ride. The boat road through the river in Ljubljana and had some historical information but mostly just light jazz music.

The boat floated in at dinner time and we strolled to our dinner reservations at an Indian restaurant we saw when we went wine tasting.

Conversation was light as we ate such spice-rich food, further confirming the best food in the world comes from places other than Europe, with Italy as the exception.

I ended the day with a nice bathtub soak feeling so grateful for all the birthday texts, videos of happy birthday songs, and birthday cards. Perhaps this will be my best decade yet.