After 6 months in Africa, Europe proved to be clean, lonely and expensive. Hitchhiking was a bitch and so was taking photos - simply exotic no longer cut it, I'd actually have to clean my lens for a change. I did, however, get published and by the time I reached Madrid, I already had something like a 100 euros on my card. I decided to invest into few things precious: first I mailed all the excess baggage back to then-husband, but prohibiting him to open the parcel as it contained prezzies. The postage left me with a little more than a ticket to the Prado museum. Prado's artifacts exhibited were so incredibly beautiful, that after all the strain to find some sign of culture in the desert, I stood in the first basement room, staring at the Roman statues, weeping like a 5-year old without an ice-cream.
Towards the end of the day I was really tired and very hungry. Getting food in Europe isn't exactly as willingly offered affair as it is in the old continent. Not to mention an ice coffee would cost me the better sum of my remaining five euros.
Up until then, I have only heard of Starbucks and bar McDonald's, I didn't know anything about it except that it is a large corporation, American and very pishy-poshy. Half a litre of their frappuccino seemed obscenely costly... but it was hot, I needed caramel and I had so much tea in the past half-year, I was seriously considering coffee as a rude change in life. So I bought the damn thing, sat down in the middle of the magnificent Madrid and started slurping.
It was the beginning of a life-long love affair..
