Renewing Mariel’s TIE
The story of how, to renew Mariel’s TIE, we tried to go to Avila, but failed, went to Segovia but couldn’t do the paperwork and finally got lucky with an appointment in Madrid.
Introduction. What are we talking about?
The story about how we renewed Mariel’s TIE (Tarjeta de Identificacion de Extranjeros) card, this is the card foreigners need to interact with the government to identify themselves in Spain. Mariel’s card expired at the beginning of June, the process to renew it is somewhat cumbersome, 60 days before it expires you can process the extension of your authorization to reside and work in the country as a foreigner. Once you have this you can get an appointment with the police to have your fingerprints taken and issue the card, the problem is that in reality it takes the governmental agency 40-60 days to give the residence authorization and until you have it you can’t book the appointment with the police and there is a long waiting list for them meaning the appointment may be 2 months in the future, this means that the process has the applicant very likely 1-2 months in a compromised situation without a legal way to interact with the social security or other government agencies. This in general is not that big of a problem since these interactions are, in normal conditions not necessary, but if it coincides with the moment of giving birth to a baby it is a problem because you can’t process your maternity leave subsidy with social security until you have the card. The problem is less of a bureaucratic sort since there is a very long period (up to a year) to apply for the maternity subsidy, but you may end up without your monthly salary for a couple of months and depending of your finances that may be a problem.
There no appointments in the province of Madrid
Knowing how this works Mariel had process the extension of her permit to reside in Madrid pretty much as soon as it was available, and we received the approval a weak or so before the expiration date of the card. Since we knew we would need the document to file the governmental help for the maternity leave we tried to find an appointment as soon as possible. The surprise is that in Madrid there are no appointments at all, not even in two months time. Feeling a sense of urgency we decide to try to search an appointment in the surrounding provinces, Toledo is in a similar situation but in Avila and Segovia appointments are available only a couple of days away. It seemed like the way to go, It is very soon to go on a trip with Mateo but being prepared it shouldn’t be impossible. Since Mariel had been in Segovia but not in Avila we select Avila as the destination.
We try to go to Avila
May the 30th
The appointment in the police station in Avila at about noon so it shouldn’t be difficult to get there in-time, traveling with Mateo we give ourselves plenty of margin times for possible stops to feed and change him on the way there. We start the trip and Mateo has had a long breastfeeding before leaving and is sound asleep, this makes things quite easy since he remains asleep during the whole trip.
We are already in the province of Avila, at about 30 min to the city and the check engine light pops up limiting the speed of the car in the freeway. Not knowing how serious the failure is and not wanting to put ourselves on risk we stop the car ASAP in the side of the road and call the road assistance service of the insurance. After briefly assessing the options we decide the best option is to go back to Madrid, order a towing truck to take the car to the workshop and a taxi back home. A complete account of the story of the car problem is left for an other post.
Back in Madrid we go to my parents home to share our bad luck with them and my aunt MariRos which happens to be there.
We go to Segovia
Jun the 4th
Having had this problem with the car in our attempt to go to Avila for the appointment for the renewal of the TIE we find ourselves in the same situation as before but without a car. We still think this should be done as soon as possible, and decide that a second attempt is worth it, this time traveling by train. Avila seems to be jinx so lets go to Segovia. We file an appointment for the 4th of Jun and book some train tickets to Segovia, that give us plenty of time to not be in a hurry.
The trip is mostly uneventful, Mariel feeds Mateo in Chamartín station and the baby is asleep in the train and during our stay in Segovia until we stop to have lunch in a restaurant where we change Mateo and feed him again. We have some cochinillo for lunch with a salad and from the point of view of the first trip with Mateo the outing is a complete success. On the other hand…
A complete failure from the point of view of getting the paperwork done. We arrive at the police station, we are attended pretty much immediately but when the police take a look at the documents he says, are you living in Madrid? You have to do this paperwork in the province where you live, this information is on the webpage.
At least in this attempt we got to do some tourism in Segovia, have some cochinillo and get some experience in traveling with Mateo… One has to look at the bright side of things.
NOTE: Reviewing the webpage it did say that it had to be done in the same province, I swear I read the page, I don’t know how I missed it. Maybe I was distracted and sleep deprived by Mateo… Yes lets blame the baby, he doesn’t care.
Finally in Madrid
After our two failed attempts, at least we know for sure that it must be done in the province of residence, which we could have known if we had read the webpage properly.
NOTE: Shsshsh we agreed it was Mateo’s fault.
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Well as I was telling you, It must be done in Madrid but there are no appointments in Madrid, what a conundrum. I find a telephone for the administration that is answered by a bored sounding, but helpful man that tells me that they are saturated in foreigners affairs, that the only thing that you can do is go to the webpage everyday and check for appointments, they usually create new appointments every week or two. I express my frustration with the whole situation because without the TIE, that has expired by now I can’t file my petitions to the social security, he agrees but there’s nothing he can do about it.
So I start checking for availability several times a day, soon I know by hart all the data needed from Mariel, and I just make a custom of trying every time I have a couple of minutes to wait. All of a sudden, while on a bus, on my way to meet my mom in the Retiro park, for a quick catch up, on my way back home from the register after asking if a Norwegian official translator would be a valid translator for the divorce certificate (see the post of getting Mateo registered); I do my routine of checking availability and there are many available spots in Aluche (Av. de los Poblados). I get to my stop, still in the process of finalizing the reservation. To confirm they need me to write the code they have sent to the email, Mariel’s email. I try to reach Mariel at both her phones, through whatsup, normal phone call, a couple of times, …, she doesn’t answer. By this time I reach where my mom is waiting, in a bench reading a book, and tell her the good news that I am reserving an appointment for the 10th of June, just a few days away, but I can’t get a hold of Mariel to confirm the process. It is Friday Jun the 7th by now so the appointment is just next Monday.
My mother says: this is important we should take a taxi home, no time to loose. I say, well, maybe but lets try calling again, call her from your phone. Mariel answers her call this time and we get the code from her email. With this done my mom and I go to a bar and drink a beer for celebration.
NOTES:
Having a beer was the plan al along but it sounds better like that.
Why Mariel didn’t answer my phone but did answer my mom is a secret that up to this day Mariel refuses to share
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Monday, the 10th of Jun, became a very busy day. For one we had to go by metro to Aluche and back with Mateo (the car was still in the workshop). After in the late evening I went also in metro to Tres Cantos to pick up the translation of Mariel’s document (see the post of getting Mateo registered).
Mateo’s first trip to Hoyo
We went to Hoyo, had lunch in El cerrillo and Jamón Iberico for dinner at home.
My parents have a flat in a urbanization in Hoyo de Manzanares in the mountain side of Guadarrama in the proximity of Madrid. It is a nice place to spend part of the summer vacations since the temperature there is cooler than in Madrid and the swimming pool is very appreciated. Also the walk possibilities in Nature just out the main entry of the urbanization.
My parents, Mariel, Mateo and I went all 5 in my parents car to Hoyo, arriving there in the morning in time to have a coffee and some sweets as a second breakfast. After breakfast my dad and I had a quick detour to Alpedrete to pick up my car form the workshop. More details on that in a specific post for later.
We had lunch in “El Cerrillo” a restaurant in town.
Had dinner at home.
We stayed in Hoyo al Saturday just enjoying life with Mateo and Mateo getting to know better his grandparents!
Registering Mateo in the "Registro Civil de Madrid"
The story of how it was not that easy to register Mateo.
I am telling you today the story of how Mateo was registered. It was much less straight forward than what you may have thought.
We were told by our midwife that we would be able to register the baby at the hospital, during the two days that we would typically stay there after giving birth. So I was surprised when at the office in the hospital where the register is done, with the paperwork at hand, the lady there attending told me that we had to go to the Civil Register to do it because Mariel’s civil status is divorced (from a previous marriage to a Norwegian man). As you may know Mariel and I are not married. So things start to complicate a little, the woman tells us there that we will need to show in the register the legal proof of the divorce. There is a 30 day time, from the day of birth to register a newborn in Spain, after that time frame the process to register the baby is more laborious since it is considered an out-of-time-inscription.
At this point things still look like the inscription will be simple we just need to go to the register, Mariel has documents from her divorce in the original Norwegian and translated to Spanish so everything seems in order to proceed. Since the registration of the baby is required for every paperwork there after, we got an appointment for the inscription of the newborn at the Civil Register at the earliest date available, the 27th of May at 11:00 am. Not to bad, but remember Mateo was born on May the 20th, so already a week has gone by.
First visit to the Register
At the register they are interested by the peculiarities of our case. A Spanish man having a child with a woman from the Philippines, not married, the woman is divorced. Eh, … wait a minute, divorce is not possible in the Philippines. No, no she divorced in Norway, she lived in Norway for many years and got married and divorced there. Ah, …. phew, OK then. Show me the paperwork.
After looking through the paper he says that the documents provided by Mariel of the divorce are not valid because they are not final, and he was right, looking carefully they were a notification that the divorce had been filled correctly and if no allegations were filed, by any party, in the following 3 months the process would be closed with a final divorce. The document even had a line saying something of the sort: “This document cannot be used as proof of divorce”. The man in the register tells us we need to ask in the Norwegian embassy for a current document with the sentence from a judge of the divorce.
Since it is still early we decide to go directly to the embassy and see what can be done. Funny thing Google thinks the embassy is in calle la Castellana, in plaza de Colón, we go there and is an office building of some company, nothing to do with he embassy, checking online on the embassy page we get an address in Serrano, not far, walking distance, basically just across Colón square, in front of the archeological museum. By the time we get there is past noon and they are closed for lunch… very European time schedule, only one hour from 12:00 to 13:00, so we decide to make time in a cafeteria and have something to eat.
Mateo in the car seat.
A little while after, back at the embassy we encounter a very helpful and friendly woman attending. She tells us that they can’t give us the document we are asking for, that we have to get into contact with the Norwegian governmental agency, and finds for us their contact information. They have to send the documents from Norway.
By these point we are starting to get a little concerned, there should be plenty of time to obtain the document and translate it to Spanish, but there is no room for error, the document must be the correct one.
Back at home we decide to have some clams for diner, to help cope with the failure of the days project to register Mateo.
Clams with tomato and paprica.
Getting the document from Norway
The next day we are able to contact the Norwegian government and after explaining repeatedly in English, until we were convinced that the woman in the law department of the government agency had understood the intent of the document we were interested in and the content it had to include, the woman could find, the required document and send it to our address in Madrid.
The document arrives in the mail on June the 5th, on the 16th day from the birth of Mateo, hurray!, things seem to be moving along. Now the next problem is to translate the document from Norwegian to Spanish. The problem is that searching online there doesn’t seem to be official translators in Madrid from Norse. So we decide to go back to the embassy to ask if the know of any translators. Making things short, the same woman from our previous visit is there at the desk and is able to give us a list of both the official translators from the Spanish and the Norwegian governments, with their contact information.
Surprisingly, or maybe not, there are only 10-12 translators between the two of them and of these most are located in Norway, in fact a grand total of 3 translators are in Spain, only one in the Spanish list, in Valencia. The other two, in the Norwegian list one in Madrid and an other in Vitoria.
Without any other criteria, Sara from Madrid seems like the best option since we could potentially meet to exchange the documents if necessary.
Sara worked from her home in Tres Cantos, she was a busy woman taking care of small kids, and this was obvious in the phone. Still she seemed efficient and capable of doing the job. She shared her concern that since she is licensed in Norway maybe her translation is not accepted in Spain. In her experience only the official translators of the nation are accepted, otherwise the translation needs to be certified in Norway.
Not wanting to spend the money on a useless translation I went back to the registry to ask about this issue… Once there talking to the same man that remembered our case he said that any translation with a seal of official translation would be valid, one from the consulate or embassy or similar.
By now it is Friday, June the 7th and we give the green light to the translator to proceed. Since it is a very short document we agree that she can have it prepared by Monday afternoon, and that I could go to her house to pick it up around 20:00 to speed up the process and save the money of a certified mail.
On an other note, since May the 27th, the first visit to the Register and the embassy, which we did with the car, we had an adventure with the car that ended with it in the workshop being fixed. This parallel story deserves a separate post, for now let us note that the car was not available at this time of the story for it was being worked on.
This meant that I took the metro to get to Tres Cantos and back, obtaining in the process a very official looking translation with stamps and seals. During the early afternoon we had in Aluche an appointment for the renewal of Mariel’s TIE, which is very much part of the story with the car. Having dthone, all three of us, is long metro trip to Aluche, earlier; I went by my self to retrieve the translation in Tres Cantos.
We are now getting towards the end of the story, but a couple of twists still remain.
Getting Mateo Finally registered
The next day, the 11th of June we go to the Civil Register again, with all of the papers, hoping that it would go smoothly this time around, spoilers, … it didn’t.
As we are arriving the man that attended us the previous times and was aware of our case, was leaving to have a coffee break, as he was leaving we cough him and briefly made him recall our case, he immediately went to his colleague and told her to attend us.
Going through the papers she noticed some irregularities, the name of Mariel was not the same on the different papers. This is not uncommon in foreign people that came from countries with a different naming convention.
The main problem was that the doctor in the delivery had written the name that appeared in the Mariel’s NIE: Mariel Espina. But the complete name in the passport is Mariel Tumale Espina, those had to coincide otherwise they couldn’t register the newborn.
The solution: To go back to the hospital Gregorio Marañon and find a doctor in the delivery section that would amend the document. It was getting to be late and I wanted to finish this paperwork today so I left Mariel and Mateo there in the register and took a taxi to the hospital. The taxi driver was quite friendly and upon knowing we were going to the delivery Hospital and that I had a newborn child we started to talk about how difficult is to meet women in the traditional way nowadays, it seems like the only viable way is through online platforms. As the conversation continued he mentioned that a good friend of him had told him that the best girls around are the Filipino, very friendly, pretty and caring, the funny thing is this happened before I had said anything about my fiancee being from the Philippines, amazing coincidence.
Once in the hospital finding a doctor to make the changes in the document and stamping it again to show the authenticity, was actually not very difficult, I did have to ask a couple of people and finally was told to go to the section of the Hospital where the facilities to give birth are and ask the doctors in duty there, which was the correct call. Getting out of the hospital I though I would tell Mariel I got the document fixed and was on my way back, … but found out I was missing my phone! I had had it back at the register, noticing my pockets were quite loose I concluded the phone must have fell from them on the taxi. I couldn’t think of anything to do about it right there, decided the best course of action was to get back to the register, finish the inscription of Mateo and use Mariel’s phone to try and call my phone to see if the taxi driver, or the current client would answer it.
After an uneventful taxi trip to the register and delivering the amended document, filling in the additional form for birth statistic purpose, Mateo is register the only implication is that in Spain he is not Mateo Magee Espina as would be normal he is Mateo Magee Tumale, taking the name of the grandmother from the Philippines instead of that of his grandfather. Curiously in the Philippines, and in his Philippine passport he maintains the surnames as originally intended Mateo Espina Magee in the Filipino naming convention.
While we were waiting to the register to be completed I confess to Mariel the stupidity of having lost my phone and start trying to call it, but no one answers it. We try to access the track my phone option from Mariel’s phone and after some configuration we manage to activate it and see its moving in a compatible way for it still being on the taxi. We see the option of making the phone ring from the app, which we think may be useful in the case the phone was in silence or in low volume, which I was not sure if it was the case.
While this is happening we leave the Register and since Mateo is hungry and I also was feeling like having a coffee, we found a coffee shop in the neighborhood and stayed there trying to call the phone every so often. After the many tries finally the taxi driver answered and reminding him of our talk about Filipino girls he remembered who I was, told me he had a passenger right now but he could call me back when he had reached the destination and bring me the phone to any address, but he would need to charge me the fair. Which is not only reasonable but expected, in fact I left him a good tip for the effort.
So concluding the story we weighted in the cafe since Mateo was still eating and we were in no hurry until the driver finished his current fair, called back, obtained the address of the coffee shop and made his way there to return the phone.
All’s well that ends well.
Mariel and Mateo back at home in the sofa.