For a few days, Andrea Nelisse and Carla Step shared a destination, a camera, and their thoughts. Between photographs and everyday moments, each of them began putting into words what quietly emerges through the intimacy of their images: the beginning of a friendship.

This journey does not seek to explain the trip, but rather to accompany it — a blend of gazes, details, and fragments that bring us closer to a feeling. Their meeting place was Ardora Apartments in Galicia, a unique architectural space in Aldán, surrounded by nature, design, and Atlantic life.

There are friendships that happen through routine, through shared spaces, through the gentle friction of our lives. Sometimes you share a class, a job, a neighbourhood, a friend, and you end up finding a hand reaching across to accompany you. And there are others that, against all odds, happen because you choose to create spaces for them to grow, even when nothing seems to naturally support that connection.

Spending a few days with Andrea in Galicia was a dream. From the moment I met her on social media, I knew we shared a very similar sensitivity and a way of being in the world. Despite our age difference and living in different cities, this connection is so genuine that it has led us to keep creating opportunities to get to know each other better. Choosing to go away together those days to spend more time sharing was a complete success.

It’s a gift to find someone who truly understands creativity the way you do, who tries to carve out a space on social media where interesting things can happen, and who also goes through many of your frustrations and insecurities. Andrea has become one of the first people I turn to when I need advice, and a creative partner with whom to share all our victories and also the hardships of freelance life.

I love being able to share this part of myself with someone I know understands it perfectly. And above all, it’s a true pleasure to create together and blend our universes.

When I was a teenager, I dreamed of having someone close to share all those curiosities that began to emerge when I was barely sixteen. I dreamed of finding someone to film videos with, or to spend an afternoon doing a “photo shoot” and then upload it to Tuenti. I was lucky enough to spend the last two years of high school in an Art School, surrounded by people with the same interests as me. And that’s when I realised something: somehow, I would always find my way to the people who would accompany me in believing in myself and trusting what I do, and in whom I could also trust.

When Carla suggested this trip to me, I couldn’t stop thinking about all of this.

Social media can sometimes feel like a hostile place, but it also allows us beautiful things, like connecting with people we wouldn’t have met simply due to geography. We always say that social media only shows 1% of who we are, and I fully agree. But sometimes I like to think that within that 1% there is also a small window into who we are: our passions, our tastes, our essence, and our way of seeing the world.

I like to think that when I discovered Carla’s profile through a video she posted, I immediately knew she was someone with a great deal of sensitivity. That she enjoyed spending time discovering architecture on her bike. And that, through photography, she had found her way of looking at the world.

Friendship in your twenties can sometimes feel exhausting. Your friends are building their lives while you’re trying to keep yours standing, and meeting up is often no longer as easy as it was in high school. You trade long days with the only responsibility of studying for your next “Conocimiento del Medio” exam for quick coffees to catch up, in the middle of a week full of work, family time, time for yourself, sport… and, if you’re lucky, getting home in time to prepare your lunch for the next day.

It’s something that sometimes makes me sad, because I would love to spend all the time in the world with my friends. But within all this chaos, I like to think that it’s not so easy to genuinely connect with someone and build a friendship from scratch, with solid foundations, in this era of immediacy.

So building this friendship together, even if it’s 620 km apart, feels like a true gift.