Soap Box

today is one of my soap box days i'm afraid! yesterday i went to our bank to put in a cheque! errr no! not possible here she said, well in spanish of course! por que i exclaimed! not your account office she said... arh i said. its just crazy here, they take cash but not cheques, can you imagine if that was the same in england! the country would come to a stand still, the same with the car registration, which i know i have mentioned at least a hundred times here before, in england when you get a new car the registration document is sent off to the only place that deals with it, DVLA in swansea, wales, they take the old details off and yours on, and in a week or maybe two, its back in your hands, the old owner, if there was one has sent his bit off to, so he is no longer eligible for fines etc, it costs nothing more than a price of a stamp, and its done, well not here... here the old owner has to take the new owner to change all the details over, either direct to the nearest 'traffic' office, here its malaga, 25k away from us! or to an office where they do it for you but charge about 200€ for it! you have to send your NIE number, passport or residencia details, proof of where you live either the escritora/deeds, or your rental agreement! and it takes a long long time, maybe a month or two even! you can drive in your new car, with a special document incase la guardia stop you.

then for your yearly tax, in england just pop down to your nearest post office and pay, thats it, no more, but here, you can only pay the tax in the tax area on the address of the registration, so if you move, or buy the car and its not been paid, actually not possible, as you would not be able to change the registration without it having been done... but we did! so it does happen, so you have to go to that towns tax office, we only had to go down to fuengirola, but what if the car had come from madrid!!!

this has all come from what has wound me up today as i decided to try again to get my empradromiento certificado, this is just to register in the town where you live, i did go there back in november last year, having moved here in the june! but the man wanted my original NIE certificate, (at my lawyers office), an NIE is like a national number everyone has to have to live here really, to buy a car, a house, register at a doctors, anything, its always asked for, i had at that point bought two places here and two cars, never even had the original, never mind been asked for it, the man spoke only in spanish, fair enough as we do live in spain, but i had to struggle, and then when i got up to go, he spoke in fluent english! huh! what a whats it eh!!

then today, i only spoke to the lady at the desk and although she moaned and exhaled heavy during the whole proceedure, she did it, and didnt even look at the originals i had with me!

i have to pick it up next friday... i think!

i want to shake up the whole system, computers are these fantastic things, no need to mke people go hither and thither, just connect to a branch and away you go! its done in england and everyother country west of here at least! i can go on here and move money around from accounts to visas and back again, well i could if i had it to do so! but you know what i mean, if we can do it from home, you would think they could do it here!

well shall i get down now, off my box?

i just have to keep reminding myself that its not been that long here, the technology is still catching up in spain, fast, but for us, not fast enough, you can see why lots of people just dont bother with some of it, its just so frustrating!

and of course, maybe its harder for those of us that dont speak spanish fluently, or and more likely as we're foreigners, imagrants, mom and i were imagrants in england but did we look like it? only to some, i used to get asked if i was italian or spanish, but here... i dont know, is it the way we walk and move, we do stand out like sore thumbs, i can spot an english person at 100 paces! it was only in sardinia that i looked just like all the other women, the same big hair! LOL

thing is in england in all my jobs, most of which were customer facing types, i never treated anyone any different, color or creed, if i was helping someone who didnt speak english i never got cross or frowned at them and refused to serve them or ignore them...

ok... off the box maz... now!

The wonderful things about friends is that
they can grow separately
and yet not grow apart...

TTFN
Marian