We spent a few days in Valencia and met up with one of our friends, Alexis. It was nice to see Lexi again and Valencia was a fantastic spot to spend a few relaxing days enjoying Spanish culture (and cheap prices!)

Valencia is a beautiful city with all the charm you’d expect from an old Spanish city. Gothic, Art Nouveau, Art Deco and Modern architecture all shine in this unique city; from Mercat Central, the Cathedral, to the Silk Market and the City of Arts and Sciences.

Naturally, there is much more to Valencia than architecture. The city has a unique crest that includes a bat. Once we realized it, we started seeing the bat all over town.

Valencia has a lot of green space and parks. We visited the Royal Gardens and Walnut was really intrigued by the aviary.

Of course, you can’t miss the amazing street art in Spain!

Valencia was fantastic and I would really like to go back. It reminded me a bit of Madrid, with it’s museums, architecture and green space. More relaxing than Barcelona, with all the good food, great prices and chill vibe that makes Spain what it is.

Last weekend we went to Granada, Spain.  We’ve been looking forward to going back to Spain, if only for a short while.  The weather was warmer than Basel yet cooler than expected.

We planned to do a little bit of clothes shopping in Spain.  Fortunately for us, there were black friday sales, even here!  Both Jenn and I needed to get a few things, which turned into a few more things.

We arrived in the evening, so we were lazy and took a taxi to our rented apartment.  The apartment had a great view of the Alhambra and the host, Antonio was very helpful.  I would definitely stay here again.

The next morning we had a guided tour of the Alhambra.  The Alhambra is an Islamic Palace that began as a small fortress in the 9th century (roman ruins on the site date further back).  The palace and gardens are beautiful.  There is still quite a bit of the original decoration including geometric designs and script, though it was taken by King Ferdinand and redecorated in places with Christian elements.  In many areas you can see the foundations of houses for those citizens allowed to live inside the walls.  There is even a functional aqueduct still bringing water to the palace.

We hiked around town a bit and did some shopping.  In little markets all over town and in the larger stores in the center.  We tried a Pionono (a small, sweet pastry) and Pastela (similar to a pasty or a large empanada).  Definitely try them, though I favor the Pastela.  We tried a vegetarian and a chicken Pastela- the vegetarian was better (both from Panaderia Maria).

We also visited the Cathedral of Granada and the San Jeronimo Monastery.  These massive renaissance style buildings were opened in the 1500s.

We’d planned to take hike in the mountains but buses didn’t run on the day we had free to do so.  Though it was a short trip, we all enjoyed Granada.

Walnut, Jenn and I went to Mallorca, Spain for the new year.  We’ll be moving to Switzerland in a month and are trying to squeeze in a few little trips in Spain before we leave.  The flight from Barcelona took about 50 minutes.  We stayed in Palma, a beautiful city on the coast.

We wandered around our neighborhood, visiting a small Christmas market and a fancy market street.  Cobblestone streets, horse drawn carriages, and ancient stone walls and cathedrals make the city feel like another world.  Castell de Bellver, found high upon a hill overlooking the port, cemented this feeling.

In the evening, the holiday lights formed tunnels down streets while stars and orbs floated overhead.  The cathedral and other ancient walls glowed in the mellow evening light.

The Palma Aquarium was pretty good.  Apparently, they have the deepest shark tank in the EU.  The sharks they had in there were huge!  They also had quite a few other aquariums, and I found their smaller tanks to be very good.

We went to a cave, cuevas drachs, on the other side of the island.  The public bus was easy to use and drove us the 60 miles or so directly to the site.  The cave was very large, with a pretty sizable lake (for a cave, that is).  At one point, they even boated in orchestra players to play a few songs for us.  After the visit, we had some time to kill and hiked to the nearby coast and sat in the sun for a while.

For €13 each way we rode a high speed train 38 minutes to Girona.  I really like travelling by train in Europe, they are fast and hassle free.  I lament the lack of efficient trains in the states.

We walked from the train station to the cathedral.  The inside is dark and very gothic.  The inner portion of the basilica is sparse with all of the gold and art contained in the transepts.  The church had few pews and stained glass windows, but the scarcity of opulence made the windows that much more colorful.

The streets of Girona are very narrow near the cathedral.  Several episodes of Game of Thrones were filmed here.  The twisting, dark, stony streets provide the backdrop for Arya’s battles with the faceless men.  After wandering the streets a bit, we climbed around and overlooked the city from the outer walls.

The Arab baths nearby were also featured in GoT- also dealing with the faceless men.  The baths themselves were built Romanesque in the 12^th century.  They were later acquired in 1618 by the Capuchin monks.

After all that climbing, we were hungry for lunch.  We walked down to a square across the river.  The square had a Christmas market set up.  We browsed the shops for a few minutes before picking a place to get some food.  We sat down outside and enjoyed some patatas bravas and sobrasada.

Then we headed to the Sant Pere de Galligants Monastery which is also the history museum.  The museum had a few roman pieces that were in fair shape.  The inner courtyard was beautiful.  One of the columns featured the original Starbuck’s mermaid.  In the monastery, a GoT tour was finishing up and they had an iron throne with a sword and cloak for pictures.  Of course, we weren’t part of the tour so we couldn’t get the cloak but we snuck up for a pic on the throne.

Girona was a beautiful city.  I think it would be great place to spend a few days and really explore.  I think one of the GoT tours might be a nice touch in such a historic city.

We finally got our empadronamiento!  We made a lot of mistakes along the way but we have it now.  The instructions from the consulate in Chicago made it sound easy as pie: simply walk in to the Subdelegación del Gobierno and hand them your police history and medical certificate and get your residence card.  That was not accurate.

So we asked around and tried to find out what the steps were.  I went to countless expat forums, Spain specific forums, reddit and even blogs that had succeeded in getting the same visa 1 or 2 years prior.  We learned we had to do it within 30 days- this part Chicago had right.  But since Chicago told it was so easy, we hadn’t expected to need the entire month to do it- we spent our first ten days after arrival in Vienna.  So we start by making an appointment with the police commission because they issue the cards.  Then we make an appointment with our local town hall for the empadronamiento or padron.  Both appointments are in early October, about 3 weeks into our 4 week deadline.  Of course our apartment lease is about to end so we find a new apartment and sign a lease for 3 months.  I make a new appointment with the police commission, the assigned date is 7 weeks past our arrival.

A week later, the police cancel our appointment and send an email saying what I think is, ‘You’ve made the wrong kind of appointment.  We’ll cancel this for you.  Try again.’ We go to our appointment with the local town hall (Gracia).  They tell us we need to have a lease for 6 months or longer and send us on our way.

Now I’m scrambling.  We’re out of our 4 week window.  I find a Gestor (kind of like an attorney, but geared toward helping you handle low level law BS) and for €30 she tells me I need to get my padron  and take it to my upcoming meeting with the police commission *not new information*  She does say that the town hall can issue an padron without an address if they want to, though they usually won’t.  She also says the police can issue our residence card without the padron if they wish and we should beg them to give it to us. *not great advice*

We go to the police on our appointment date.  We beg them for the card.  They say no and tell us to get our empadronamiento first and come back.  She does stamp and sign our appointment sheet, which basically gives us an undated extension to continue to work on our paperwork.  We reached out to friends to see if someone can help us with the padron.  Fortunately, our good friends in Barcelona agreed to help!  They filled out a ton of paperwork and gave us copies of the necessary very personal supporting documents.  They even went to the appointment with us!  With this extra help, the padron was issued in the 3^rd week of November.

2 days later we went back to the police commission.  They took our padron and our fingerprints and gave us the resguardo document and told us to pick up our card in a month.  Fingers crossed!

Update:  When we returned, we were a week early.  We came back a week after that and they had our cards waiting for us!

Within 30 days of arrival, we are supposed to apply to get our residence cards, padron and who knows what else.  Today, I have managed to get through their website and get appointments for out Padron and (I hope) our tarjeta de residencia.  The latter was much more difficult for me to understand.

Yesterday, we went to the International House in Barcelona to take placement exams for their very inexpensive Spanish course.  I received an email this morning stating they won’t be holding a Spanish course at this time for my rather basic level.  Oh well, maybe next time.