When we checked with the bank, they said there should only be one fee for one tramite, and I had paid it way back at the beginning of this tramite, when I went to Orihuela in November. The same cannot be said for the certificate of empadronamiento. These certificates are only valid for three months, and the one I had gotten at the beginning of these proceedings ran out, very inconveniently, less than a week before today. So last Thursday we dropped by the ayuntamiento in our town, with a copy of the escritura, our house deed, to request a new certificate of empadronamiento.
No problem, and since this was the second time we had requested one (it was actually the third, but who's counting?) the woman at the town hall told us we didn't need the escritura. We just needed to pick up the copy on Monday--it takes two days.
So yesterday we picked up the certificado de empadronamiento at noon, checked and re-checked that we had all the papers needed, and investigated how to get to the Policia Nacional in Alicante. The designated time--it would be too much to call this an appointment--was between 9:00 and 2:00. I set the alarm for 7:00 AM, which is a somewhat unusual occurrence in this household now, but I woke up at 6:00 and used the extra time to find the Policia Nacional on my iPad. The directions sounded correct, and when I viewed the location using Google Maps, I knew it was right--the static picture showed a line of people waiting outside a boring looking building, so it must be a police station. I also found the address on a paper map of the city, to get a better idea of the larger picture than I can find on a screen, and when we got in the car at 8:00 my trusted driver found it on the GPS.We listened anxiously to Gloria Perez Sanchez as we drove off, wondering whether she would agree with Google Maps on the iPad.
Forty-five minutes later, we knew that she did, and shortly thereafter we drove into a parking lot next to the police station. Only about 20 people were in line in front of us, and the line was moving. As we got to the front, a police officer checked my papers and directed me through a door to the inside of the building. But no, my husband could not accompany me into the building--no compañeros during this procedure--he had to wait outside.
I went inside with the number I had been given: no. 26. Five rows with about 20 seats in each comprised the waiting room, and I was directed to a seat in the third row. The number machine showed that we were on no. 4.
The line moved surprisingly quickly. By 9:20 we were on no. 13, and at 9:30 my number 26 was posted. I went through the glass doors, waited again, and eventually was directed to one of the six or seven desks handling these affairs. I had all my papers in my hands (and all my back-up papers from the previous excursion in a folder in my bag). The clerk looked first at my proof of payment and laid it on a stack. Whew! Then she looked at the computer screen, my passport, former card, and the letter. Then she took out a unique square-shaped set of scissors and cut out two photos from the set of three that I had given her. She pressed some keys on the computer and out came some papers. I had to sign my name in two places, she asked if I understood Spanish, and when I said "si, un poquito," she told me in Spanish that I could pick up my card in a month in Orihuela, and gave me my old card attached to a paper indicating Orihuela. Then she directed me to the fingerprinting office immediately behind me.
I was pretty sure they wanted my right forefinger, but I was not prepared for the fact that I could not press the finger onto the inkpad or the receiving paper myself. No, the officer had to guide me in that, because there is a very special way to roll the finger horizontally from right to left. We did that twice, on two separate sheets of paper--one for the files, I suppose, and one for the card that I will pick up in Orihuela a month from today. After I rolled my finger--or rather, after the officer rolled my finger--I got a little paper to clean my hand. ¿Listo? I asked. Listo, said the officer. Hasta luego. Well, not any time soon, I thought to myself. I'm going to Orihuela in a month, not back here. I don't expect to be back here for the next ten years, which is when this card will expire.
As tramites go, this one was not traumatic.We stopped at the cafe bar on the way out and had a cafe con leche and media tostada con atun y tomate. And we were finished with that by 10:00 and had the rest of the beautifully sunny day to enjoy ourselves. Since we were in a part of Alicante that was new to us, we decided to continue on a different route and see something new before we left the city and went back to our area to do banking and go to the grocery store. We did pursue a different route, and we did see something new, though not what we had planned as we sat with our cafe con leche. But that's what happens when you go joy-riding in a new part of the city without listening to Gloria Perez Sanchez. Since we hadn't turned her on, she couldn't warn us about what roads not to take. But at least we didn't get caught while going down the ambulance- and taxi-only lane in an otherwise one-way street next to the hospital. I guess we were far enough away from the police station by that time.
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