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Atocha Station, Madrid, originally uploaded by ultraclay!.

Madrid, Spain. 2003.

Atocha station has an interesting significance in my memory. My sister and I stayed a couple blocks away from Atocha station when we were in Madrid on our Euro-Trip. It's a big beautiful station and strikingly, it houses a climate controlled rain forest in the remnants of the original station.

It was one of the landmarks that we both remembered very clearly. A little over a year later, it was at the center of the March 11th bombings. It was jarring. One of the great benefits of traveling, as far as I'm concerned, is that it tangibly connects us to places we might otherwise only see or hear about abstractly on television or in movies. The flip side of that is that when someone happens to try to blow it up, it hits closer to home.