Wait, you already know that. But now, I'm almost official. For all new residents in Spain, within the first 30 days, they must register (or empadronar) at "city hall" with their living address. The form/process is called obtaining your empadronamiento and requires quite a bit of paperwork.
My process took two trips and a lot of waiting in line. The first trip was to obtain the form, which I gave to Christina (roommate) to fill out and attach her resident card. The second trip was taking this filled out form, my Visa and Passport, and getting my empadronamiento. A few of my friends had a little trouble with this, and I was getting nervous because I needed this form to apply for my NIE, which must be done before Sept30. I waited in line and finally a grey-haired man called my number. When he saw I was a "researcher," he asked what I was doing. After I explained my project, his eyes grew wide with interest. He pulled me close to him and said, "I'm in healthcare too!" Now I'm thinking this guy is on crack. Why, if you are in healthcare, are you working at the town hall office? Turns out the guy is an auditory therapist and he can help heal people by producing certain sounds close to their body. He kept saying "the medicine of the future!!!"
I humored him as long as I could (for about 45 minutes). He pulled out a CD and asked me to listen to it twice and email him my thoughts (yes, hippies have email). From what I gathered by the cover, the CD is of dolphin squeals at 432 Hz...I'll let you know if it changes my life. Finally, we get to my paperwork. He looks at my passport, filled with stamps from all over the world, and was enamored. He's only left Spain once to travel to none other than New Orleans, the place I lived long ago. He types a few lines in his computer, prints out my certificates, shakes my hand, and wishes me good luck with my work. I'm finiding Spain's pace refreshing. Lesson learned...take interest in people's lives, you never know how they will influence yours.
Talk soon
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