Week 2

I am not going to continue to write these blogs as a diary, but these first weeks so much is happening, that it helps us to remember what happened when. And you get the privilege of reading it :).

Thursday 28 January

The day before we left the Netherlands, we had exported our car, which now needed to be imported. We had insurance for 14 days and 10 of those had already passed. Two of the remaining days were weekend days, so we needed to take action. I called our insurance agent to find out if there was a way to get the car insured temporarily, while we were trying to get it imported. There was. If we could get a ‘gestoría’ to write a document that they were working on getting the car imported, he could get the car insured for 3 months. Great!

By the way, a ‘gestoría’ is someone who helps people get through red tape. Some specialize in taxes, some in insurances, others in dealing with government and some in importing cars. It certainly testifies to how complex Spain’s bureaucracy is, if there is an army of people helping other people to deal with all of that.

On Tuesday our lawyer had already told us that it usually takes around 2 months to import a car. What?! I had read somewhere you need to go the capital of the province to get the right papers. Then I found out you need to do a MOT/Smog/APK first, called ITV in Spain. Also, the lawyer on Tuesday said “I suppose you could try and do it yourself, but it is probably better to get a gestoría.

Our neighbors, Mark & Jacky heard about this and had very kindly offered we could borrow one of their cars if we needed to go anywhere while we tried to get the car insured and imported, but we didn’t want to impose on them. They had been too kind already.

So, to get the car insured so we could drive it after Sunday, we needed to get insurance. The next step was to find a gestoría. I found one and she told me via WhatsApp where we could best go for our first ITV. I contacted that company and got an appointment the next day at 10. Great! Assuming we would pass the inspection, we could get the papers to the gestoría that same morning.

So, Friday at 10 we were in the town of Lorca to get our first ITV. You stay in the car, while they test everything.

We’d never seen that before. It took about an hour between our arrival, getting the paperwork prepared and the end of the test. The car passed the test with flying colors. Then they told us they would work on finalizing the paperwork and we could come and collect it on Monday. We explained the urgency and then a man came who spoke English with us. He said they would hurry the paperwork and they would email us when they were done, around 4 or 5 that same afternoon.  That was a lot better than Monday. We went home and waited for the mail. It came around 4. So, we got right back in the car and went to collect the papers. We received all the paperwork the gestoría told us we needed. Then we went to the gestoría and handed her the papers. She told us that she also needed proof that we were registered in the town of Huércal Overa. Ah! We had done that and we had a document to prove it. “That isn’t the right document,” she said. We needed to go back to city hall and get the right document. But she would write the note we needed to get the car insured. So most of the missions accomplished.

Back at the house, we scanned in her document and sent that off to the insurance agent. He confirmed on Monday morning that all was OK and we could continue to drive the car.

Our new house has thick concrete walls and although we had internet and wifi from the day we moved in, the wifi wasn’t very good in most of the rooms in the house. I told Mirjam that the only thing I wanted to accomplish on Saturday was to put up the two professional grade wifi access points I had, at central points on the ground floor and the first floor. Because the house is built by a master builder, I wanted the access points to be fixed as nicely as possible, without showing any wires. This meant drilling through thick walls and insulated ceilings, door styles and attic floors. It wasn’t easy, but we were proud of the result.

And now, we have a perfect connection throughout the house. Getting the outside access point up will take some effort as well, but we’ll do that later.

Sunday we took a day off. It was the first day since we left Graeme’s apartment 9 days earlier that we did close to nothing. We just enjoyed the house, the grounds, the fact that the cats are super relaxed and each other. It was a glorious day.

On Monday we needed to get our Spanish mobile phone plans to be activated. We decided to go to the store once more to explain we hadn’t been called yet, even though we were told it would take up to 48 hours max on Thursday. Our Dutch phone plans had stopped working by now.  Monday is also one of the two day there is a farmers’ market in town. We decided to explore the market first. It was quite stretched out and there is a lot to be found. Nice to know. We both love strolling along these markets and finding good deals.

In the same street as the market is the phone shop. We had to wait outside for about half an hour while they were attending to other customers. When it finally was our turn and we explained we hadn’t been contacted that our numbers were activated, the nice girl who had helped us earlier immediately took action. She called the provider and she did something with Mirjam’s phone while she was on hold. We had no idea what she did on Mirjam’s phone, but when she finally got through to the provider, she spent 15 minutes explaining what the problem was and when the person on the other side was finally to a point she was willing to find out what the problem was, the line got disconnected. So, our girl called back and another 15 minutes passed. The new person she got on the phone asked for our Spanish ID cards, which we don’t have. It will be something like 6 months before we are residents and get one of those cards. But without that card, no phone plan. So in the end we decided to get a pre-paid sim, so we would at least have a Spanish number. We need Spanish numbers to be able to get through so much other red tape. To get the pre-paid cards registered took another hour. By the time we left the shop, we had become very grumpy, but 3.5 hours after we had reached the store, we left with activated sims with a Spanish number. Mission accomplished. Once we have our resident’s cards, we can get the pre-paid cards to be changed to plans that are direct debited monthly (or so we hope).

By the time we left the phone store, the nice girl was not so nice anymore. She wanted to go home to have lunch, but we refused to pay and leave until we had a working number and functioning internet on our phones. Reluctantly, she got everything functioning. Then, the payment terminal refused to work and we were forced to pay cash. Not really a problem, but it just added to the aggravation.

We decided not to go to the town hall to ask for the document we needed for the gestoría; it was too late and we were too grumpy to deal with more BS.

Instead we went on Tuesday. We got the same person as the first time. We handed her the document she had given us the week before and asked her for the document we needed. She told us it would be ready on Thursday.  We needed an appointment to collect it though and we were sent to the next window. There, a lady with reading spectacles asked for our passports and proceeded to type in her computer. In the end we got the appointment for Thursday at 09:20. Great, we had something.

We went home and Mirjam decided to make a focaccia. While she did that, I took it upon myself to put the furniture on the porch in its place. Until now, it had looked more like a furniture store than someone’s porch. As the focaccia was proofing, Mirjam came and helped me and in no time, we had a porch that actually looked inviting and is very functional.

Once the focaccia was done, we decided to visit with Mark and Jacky next door and brought them half of the focaccia. We sat on their patio in the sun and had a beer and a nice chat . It was a lovely day and the first day I wore shorts! Wow February 2^nd and shorts. I can get used to this.

Wednesday we decided to take a break from going into town and get frustrated and instead stayed home and worked on getting the dining room in order. Happy with the result we had a lovely dinner in our ‘new’ room. In the evening, I put some solar lights in the front garden to get more depth in the view from the porch.

What happend at the town hall on Thursday will be part of the next blog!