Month: March 2020

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The Dance Defence #LivingInSpain #quarantine

It seems to me that this wretched virus seems to bounce fairly lightly off the young and/or active and home in on the sedentary and if that’s true, lockdown is more than just the opportunity to write uninterrupted but presents some unusual challenges.

typing

We’re in full lockdown in Spain and my elderly dog, who entirely approves of brief constitutional outings, is slightly indignant at being hauled out several times a day instead of the usual morning and evening. I do also have the whole house to paint, alone, since my usual support and helper is similarly locked down, but it isn’t enough to keep me as active as I suspect I need to be.

uh oh
 

So that’s it, back to my Zumba DVD 20 minute workout three times a week. It turns out all the work of running and maintaining a guesthouse, plus the dog-walking, didn’t keep me as fit as I had thought (puff puff). I’m planning now also to download some of the more hectic songs from my teens and create a playlist to dance away the virus on non-zumba days. Who’s with me?

head banger ”

 

 

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What’s in a name? #LivingInSpain

I carry a concertina file with every single piece of paper I may need to prove my identity and / or address every time I go near the authorities.

This is in part sensible practice, because you often have no idea what may be required (I list some of them below) and it saves an awful lot of running back and forth and standing in the same queues more than once. It is also in part because my parents generously gave me four names at birth, none of which are remotely Spanish, and the Spanish authorities must have, so far, at least seven variations on record.

My favourite variation came from Movistar, the telephone service, which has my middle names, Joanna Lamprey, as Yoanha Lanprey. My car is registered to Elizabeth Jonanna Lamprey (i.e. my actual surname doesn’t appear at all) and my new driving licence has, I think perhaps fortunately, been issued in the same name.

The main problem is that in Spain most people have at least four names including two surnames, their mother’s and their father’s.  The mother’s surname customarily comes last. Most choose to use father’s surname as main surname but you do have the choice, every Spanish form you will ever fill in asks for 1st apilledo, and most have a separate spot for 2nd apilledo.

So along comes Elegsabiff with four names and quite often the authority I am dealing with decides I am too ignorant to know that my 1st apilledo is the third name, so they correct my mistake for me. Quite often said authority is in Madrid, or Granada, or Jaen, so I’m not there at the time to correct it back.

Even the ones that get it right struggle with the spelling – hence  Elisabeth, Yoanha, Joann, Jonanna, Lanprey, etc.  Those who do add in my actual surname invariably do spell it right. Nobody can pronounce it, though, so I always have to spell it out. It includes a Y.

Y is pronounced i griega. No, no reason, just thought you’d want to know.

So, flipping through my concertina file, I have

  1. My NIE – número de identidad de extanjero – has my name perfectly, in full, but shows me as being born in Durban, United Kingdom. Oh well, we in Natal always did call ourselves the last outpost of the British Empire. You’re asked for your NIE all the time. Learn the number by heart.
  2. My Padron – Joanna was skipped as being unnecessary / too difficult to spell / not needed on voyage.
  3. My official bank certificate, for bank details – Lamprey was skipped as being confusing.
  4. My permission to run a guest house from the Turismo y Deporte – Joanna not included
  5. My registration as self-employed (autonomo/a) and a tax payer is perfect – now – but originally had me as Elisabeth Joann etc
  6. The Fremap one reversed 1st apilledo and 2nd apilledo.
  7. My escritura (deeds for my house) are, phew, perfect. That’ll make the will much easier, so long as the name is right on the will.
  8. My medical card is almost right – who needs the final A in Joann?
  9. My residency card is perfect, but took three tries and the translator I luckily took with me getting really, really emphatic.
  10. My name on the tax register had two errors and eventually I had to get an accountant to correct it.
  11. Six photocopies of my passport – which I carry on me at all times.
sigh

In every single case I had to provide either my passport or a notarized copy at the time. I really hope there won’t be tears before bedtime with all these variations, not one of which was me being ditzy.  If I lose this concertina file I suspect I will cease to exist.

I do rather wish my parents had liked the name Maria, and hadn’t bothered with the others, useful as they have proved as pen names.

moping

 

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Driving licence, tick #LivingInSpain (permiso de conducción)

If you are living and driving in Spain, no matter which country you come from, you get six months grace before you have to go to the DGT (Dirección General de Tráfico for a Spanish licence – the permiso de conducción. 

Getting the replacement driving licence is something the authorities have not been too rigorous about up to now. They want you to, they encourage you to, you are supposed to, and there are threats of fines if you don’t, but they haven’t been nasty about it before.

Oh, hello Brexit.

Don’t be using your UK licence, when living in Spain, after the UK leaves the EU, or you will have to retake your test.  In Spanish.

scold

Well if you’re going to be like that about it  …

I used, and recommend, DrivingLicences.es – you register with them, load all your documentation (I’ll go through that in a minute) and pay them a fee which works out around 40€. They check everything is in order, tell you step by step what you have to do, make the appointment for you at the local DGT,  (mine was Granada) and give you a letter in Spanish to give to your burócrata which explains you don’t speak good Spanish and provides the answers to the commonest questions they may have.

So what you need is:

  1. Residency certificate or card and at least one copy (if card, front and back)
  2. Valid passport from whichever country issued your current driving licence, and at least one copy
  3. Medical certificate
  4. Two suitable photographs
  5. Your original driving licence
  6. If your address does not match your residency certificate, you’ll need a current original padron and at least one copy. I took one anyway. Just in case.


You could probably do the whole thing yourself but I found paying the DrivingLicence.es fee worth every cent for peace of mind.


The photos cost 5€ to be done by a local photographer but a photo booth would have been fine.


The only tricky thing about the medical certificate is that it has to be current so I waited to know my appointment date at the DGT (because of Brexit, the delay in certain areas can be months, but mine was three weeks, ideal).  It was then a case of finding the nearest place which was authorised to do the medical test – look online. Rather than try to book an appointment (cita previa) over the phone I pitched up in person to make the appointment in my limping Spanish and they very nicely tested me there and then.


You need to take your residency card or certificate, and your original driving licence. They’ll fill in the form (do check that they entered everything that is on your current licence, or it will only be filled in for driving a car) and do two separate examinations in two separate rooms. The first is eyesight and hearing tests, blood pressure, height and weight.  The second is a reactions test, and fun – you get a fifteen second trial run at keeping on two sets of tracks which twist and turn (and occasionally go in two different directions, exactly the way the wheels on a car don’t) without being beeped at too often, then do it for real. Your photograph is taken and your certificate, with photo, printed out. The cost was 45€.


The DGT appointment was made with a reference number so when you get there, find a terminal in the main hall to punch the number in, and it will tell you which floor to go to and which desk you will be seen at. You then sit and wait for your number to come up, which mine did bang on time.  I had a very nice burocráta  who spoke not a word of English but briskly processed everything, took away my UK licence and gave me a form confirming I had applied and paid (24.10€) to present to any enquiring policia before my temporary licence arrived, which it did within the week.


The card licence arrived today – in the name Elizabeth Jonanna Lamprey. Oh well. Matches the car.


 


 

			

	
	



			
				



	
	


		
					

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Medical card, tick. #LivingInSpain (Tarjeta Sanitaria)

	


		

		
I don’t suppose Spanish bureaucracy is any trickier than French (which is infamous) or English (which is tortuous) but it’s all in Spanish and my command of this lovely language is still strictly limited. Don’t shout at me – 90% of my guests speak English as their second language if not their first and I teach English every day.  Even my Spanish guests wince so much at my slow careful pronunciation they suggest I let them practice their English instead.


However, matters bureaucratic must be conducted in Spanish. Getting my Tarjeta Sanitaria (health or medical card) was actually pretty easy. I went to my local medical centre for a form to complete, then returned that with my passport and a copy of same,  a current padron* and copy of same, and a letter downloaded by my accountant off the tax website confirming  I am registered as autonoma and paying my Social. The receptionist checked it, said Madrid would be in touch if there was a problem, and sent it off a few weeks ago – card received today, and now I am covered completely for any illness, issues, or coronavirus symptoms I care to develop. At the same time I got a letter inviting to get my innards checked as I’m over fifty, very efficient, AND my name is 100% correct, which is more efficient than very nearly every other authority I’m registered with in Spain.**


*The Padrón Municipal de Habitantes was on another blog, but in brief your local town council, or ayuntamiento, needs to keep track of how many people are in the town to do accurate forecasts for town necessities. Anyone living more than 6 months of the year in the town should therefore go to the ayuntamiento, complete the form, and present it with proof of address ( your escritura (deeds to your house) or your rental agreement) plus your passport. The form is issued promptly and efficiently and has an effective shelf-life of several months, although few are sticklers about that.  Getting a replacement, at least at my friendly ayuntamiento,  is just a question of handing in the first** and saying your address hasn’t changed, Bob’s your uncle (which is not Bob es tu tio, I haven’t yet learned the equivalent colloquialism because my Spanish, as mentioned earlier, is still decidedly basic despite free local lessons twice a week and listening to the excellent Michel Thomas CDs whenever I’m in the car).


**I always have my concertina file containing every piece of paper ever issued to me when I go near the authorities, just in case. It saves a lot of running back and forth and if I lose it I might as well jump off a cliff as I will have ceased to exist. There’s going to be a blog about that too.