Madrid is not where I’m staying.
Madrid is where I’m arriving. Today is a travel day the kind where your body shows up before your spirit catches up. I land, collect my bag, and resist the urge to rush. Tomorrow I’ll fly again, this time to Gran Canaria, where a three-week workaway waits. Today is simply about touching down.
Madrid couldn’t be more different from Golfito, where Act I began. There, days unfolded slowly, measured by the angle of the sun and the rhythm of tides in the bay. Life announced itself quietly dogs barking in the distance, fruit vendors passing once a day, neighbors waving because there were only so many people to wave at. Golfito shrank my world until I could breathe again. Madrid does the opposite. It expands everything at once noise, motion, choice, possibility. In Golfito, stillness healed me. Here, stimulation invites me back into the current.
So I walk.
That’s how I learn a place. Not through must-see lists or pins on a map, but by letting my feet argue with my jet lag until the city reveals itself.
Madrid doesn’t ease you in. Old buildings rise suddenly, ornate and heavy with history, stone balconies stacked like they’ve been watching centuries pass without comment. A few blocks later, everything shifts glass storefronts, modern lines, global brands glowing behind polished windows. The contrast is immediate, almost aggressive.
Past and present colliding without apology.
If I walk long enough, I always stumble into the places everyone comes to see. Not because I planned it, but because cities have gravity. Landmarks pull you in whether you’re looking for them or not. I pause, take it in, then keep moving.
This is how Act II begins.
Not with arrival fanfare. Not with certainty.
But with contrast.
Spain feels different right away. Louder than Costa Rica, faster than Nicaragua, more layered than either. The language wraps around my ears in full sentences instead of survival phrases. The pace suggests participation, not retreat.
I’m not here to hide.
Gran Canaria will bring routine again shared meals, tasks, exchanges of time for shelter. A familiar rhythm in a new place. But Madrid is the hinge. The breath between chapters.
I feel it as I walk.
Act I was about stopping. Act II is about choosing.
Not productivity. Not ambition. But engagement.
I don’t know yet what Europe will ask of me –only that it will ask something. And for the first time in a long time, I’m willing to answer.
By nightfall, my legs ache. My head is full. Tomorrow, another plane.
Tonight, I let the city settle into me.
The curtain has lifted.
The stage is bigger now.