the balance if you don't know where you're going, any path will take you there. and what a good place it has taken me.

There are serious amounts of fluffy, white snow falling in Madrid.  I, blissfully unaware of the snow, left my house with no gloves and no hat and upon closing my front door, realized that not only was it snowing…but I had left my keys inside!  And my room mate isn´t home.  So that is how I find myself, snug as a bug, in a Starbucks.  Yes, that´s right, I said it.  IN A STARBUCKS.  I have no shame, it is SERIOUSLY snowing out there.  There is one a mere 6 blocks from my house and I thought they might have wifi.  They don´t, but by the time I got here I had had it with my Spanish winter wonderland and am thus sipping a tall Americano out of a paper cup with reindeer and snowflakes on it (are they the same at your Starbucks?), typing Word Documents to upload later, and thinking of all the Starbucks I have been in, in the US and abroad.  The list goes a little something like this….
South Carolina
    Columbia  (The one on Forest Drive, never the one in Five Points.  Ever.)
    Fort Mill
North Carolina
    Raleigh (On Peace Street and in Cameron Village)
    Greensboro (that lovely one off the highway that was my half-way point)
    Charlotte
Florida
    Mum and I took a road trip and I´m sure Starbucks was involved
Massachusetts
    Boston
    Wakefield?  (That´s a maybe)
Virginia
    Norfolk
Georgia
    Some small town off the highway
Various Airports
    DC
    Chicago
    Logan
    Charlotte
    Atlanta
    Dallas-Fort Worth
Chile
    Santiago
Spain
    Madrid

I wonder if there´s a world record for going to the most Starbucks.  I wonder how many Starbucks there ARE in the world.  Shira told me they are the world´s biggest buyer of organically grown coffee.  I do find it odd that inside this Starbucks, on the biggest, busiest street in Madrid, I have no clue that I am in Spain.  Looks exactly like every other Starbucks I´ve seen.  Except to get into the bathroom, you need a passcode that´s on your receipt.

And while we´re on the subject, the Starbucks symbol has always been quite the mystery to me.  So it´s a mermaid, yea?  But it looks like her tail is split in two…strange.  All opinions on the tail debate welcome.