This is my initial update for everyone who is wondering if it’s possible to make a big move to Spain and survive. So here is the scoop on our big vacation to Spain. HAHAHAHAHAHA! Vacation; yeah right.
I’ll start with the flight. Miguel flew over from Toronto on November 23rd and I followed him from Calgary the next day. Both flights were hell for different reasons. While I only had an hour and 20 minute delay in from London to Malaga as opposed to Miguel’s 2 hour delay, I paid close to $500 more in excess baggage while Miguel paid around $250. Luggage becomes a whole new concern when you’re taking your entire life with you.
Finally we made it to sunny Spain where the temperature outside is around a balmy 15 degrees Celsius in Malaga. Pretty warm eh? The only problem is that we are 20 minutes north of Malaga in the mountains so by the time you get up here take off around 5-7 degrees so you’re looking at an average temperature of about 8-10 degrees.
Still not bad for November? Ok, but first let me explain Spanish housing. Houses in Spain are NOT made the same way that North American houses are. I’m sure you probably already had an idea of that, but I’ll go into a little more detail. Houses in Canada are made to keep the warmth in. This is why they are made with planks of wood and drywall. So when you come in from a cold blizzard you instantly feel warmth; like a warm blanket. Houses in Spain are made to keep the heat out. They don’t have a lot of air conditioning here as it would take the GDP of a small country to cool it down for 10 months out of the year. So they make the houses out of concrete, brick and plaster. That’s GREAT! For 10 months in a year, but for 2 months it’s like living in an unheated basement. You guys get to read about it. We’re learning it the hard way or should I say the cold way. Here in Spain in November and December if you want to warm up you have to go outside and hope it’s not raining as this is also the rainy season. We are adjusting though. I’ve gotten used to my nose being cold all the time and I spend a lot more time outside now.
So that was the first night’s lesson. There have been many along the way. The next lesson was more fun. I don’t know if you know this, but the amount of time it takes a country’s government to get something done is proportionate to how long the country has been around. So if your country has been around for like EVER then getting anything processed like say a birth certificate takes approximately 8 months to a year. UNLESS, you go through your family lawyer. I have a feeling in Canada if you were to do this someone would be going to jail, but in order to get Miguel’s birth certificate so that he can get his national identity number so he can do anything here we went to the family lawyer who calls a guy in Madrid and it turns out that it only takes 25 days to really get a birth certificate if you’re willing to pay. We can’t wait 8 months so we did it.
This is apparently how Europe works. You know what they say when in Rome….. Of course if we knew that we needed the birth certificate before we got here we would have been on it like white on rice about a year ago, but you never know what’s going on until you get to where you think you need to be here in Spain and then they send you to someone else and they tell you something completely different. Make sense? I don’t get it either. Anyway, so we’re waiting for Miguel’s birth certificate now and a bill.
As I said before you can’t do anything here unless you have a NIF (national identity something or rather) UNLESS you’re not a citizen. HUH! So I, as a foreigner, can do anything I want except work and apparently own a car, but Miguel can’t do anything. Not until he gets that number. We have a car now except that we don’t really. We drive it around and fill it up with gas and we even have some pictures of it (it’s more like a golf cart cuz sometimes on the highway I can only go like 60 km in a 100 km zone), but when we went to change ownership we couldn’t because the guy insisted that we need a NIF # to do it. I’m not sure as I don’t speak Spanish that well and I also don’t understand the bureaucracy here at all.
We did the next best thing we put it in Miguel’s mom’s name. She didn’t like that too much since she already has 2 cars in her name so we went back to where we bought it from and she talked to the guy and now apparently we’re leaving it in transfer which you can do for up to 60 days until Miguel gets his NIF and then we can transfer ownership. The question is who is it in transfer with right now? The previous owner or his mom cuz I think we already went through the process before she complained. Meh! Who cares? We have a car. I never would have guessed that my first car would be a Peugot or in Spain for that matter. It’s a good thing I learned on a standard.
Anyway now that we have a car we’re spending a lot more time looking for a place to live and soon at finding work. There is a lot of land here, but every time we make an appointment to go see it turns out it’s already been sold. There is one place that we looked at that has been vacant for a while. There’s a reason it hasn’t been sold yet. Actually there are about a million reasons it hasn’t been sold yet, but we like it!
It’s a real fixer upper which is kind of what I’ve always wanted. Miguel’s cringing at all the work that will need to be done. The most appealing thing to me about this place is that there is a vulture’s den about 150 meters away from it. Now, I know what you’re thinking, but these are not the kind of vultures that you see in old cowboy movies in Canada where they’re eating the carcasses of dead people in the desert. These guys are quite well fed and keep their distance. Mind you if we do end up living there I think that we will be keeping the cats inside just in case. But these birds are amazing. Twice we saw one hover in mid air. One time it was right in level with our heads since we were up in the mountains and there are lots of hills. They just stay in one place in the air and let the wind keep them up. This is how they hunt. So we’re looking into this place a little more. Keep your fingers crossed.
I gotta say, I’ve been here before, but when you’re here as a possible future citizen it’s very different. There are so many weird things here that I thought I’d never see. Like a monkey crossing the street in Malaga. Apparently one of the problems here in the south of Spain is a lot of illegal immigrants from Africa. And I guess some of them bring monkeys and such with them. Apparently some guy once tried to import a whole litter of baby tigers or lions or something rather.
It’s different being here and I am slowly adjusting, but it will take time. Things are happening, but at a slow rate. We have no idea where life is going to take us, but I’m sure we’ll be just fine. I hope this letter has been half as entertaining to read as it has been to me to write. I’ll send some more notes along the way and let you know how our vacation in Spain is going. HAHAHAHAHAHA! Vacation. Okay, I’m going outside to warm up.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment