In the spring of 2005 I was sitting at my desk as an architecture intern at my first job out of college and my Nokia brick phone with a lime green colored case started vibrating. The caller ID showed a gibberish of numbers, so I knew it was my best friend calling from his international law school study abroad program. I answer the phone and hear all kinds of party noises in the background. The time difference meant it was well into the night there. My friend had probably had a few, and he was telling me that I needed to get over there and run with the bulls with him. When the call ended I booked a flight to Madrid for two weeks ahead, and then asked my boss for permission to take the trip. Probably the wrong order to do that.
That trip, aside from a quick cruise to Nassau, was the first time I ever really left the country. We stayed in hostels, ate the cheapest shawarma we could find, and drank 1 euro beers sold by street vendors. I probably survived a few weeks on $300.
I was excited to get an opportunity to return to Madrid for the first time in nearly 20 years and experience the city as a grown up. I ate at the admittedly tourist trap “oldest restaurant in the world”, but they were incredibly kind and i’m very happy with the picture I was able to take of the chef with their 400 year old ovens.
