I have heard it said that you either like Barcelona or Madrid, never both. Each city has its own charms, culture, personality, food and history but are uniquely distinct — so distinct that if you like the style of either, it probably means you won’t be into the other. I have found this to be true of other country’s cities too; e.g., Melbourne and Sydney, Australia, Los Angeles and New York, USA, Munich and Berlin, Germany, Bogotá and Medellín, Colombia. Well I really like Madrid. Unfortunately, it’s so freaking expensive to find housing there that I can’t spend as much time as I’d like (months!). This year though I was able to find a week there before heading back to North America. I was again working too much, so my routine consisted of working from the hotel lobby where I was stationed in front of a big window where I watched passersby while pounding on my computer.
The highlights of my trip were meeting with my friend Richard and his family who hosted me for a dinner in their house in the suburbs for a night. I met the family while I was living in the Maldives in 2020. Every so often you meet like-minded people and want to stay connected; Richard give me an additional reason and motivation to return to Madrid.
Costanza also visited for a couple of days even though I was knee deep in work and wasn’t much of a host to the city, it was fun to have someone to eat dinner with.
