Trying to Reside

When I moved to Mallorca, I was told that I would have to get a ‘residencia’ – a permit of residence.

It seemed a pleasingly simple process: all that was required by the authorities was a copy of my passport, three photographs, a contract of employment and a fixed address; all of which I had.

However, in true Spanish fashion, my quest for a simple piece of plastic turned into such a monumental fiasco, that when I finally left the country; eight years, countless employment contracts and over a dozen fixed addresses later, I still had not managed to acquire one.

As soon as Tomeo presented me with my paperwork, Manolo and I started to make the necessary plans to travel down to the Island’s capital; Palma de Mallorca.

It was by no means a straightforward operation; persuading recalcitrant bosses to give half a day off work is no easy task. We also had to hire a car; the bus being singularly unreliable and slow – taking well over two hours to travel 62km – and thus unlikely to deliver us there and back in the time allotted.

So eventually we set off in a bright red Renault Twingo, whose colourful interior and oversized plastic controls put me in mind of something a two year-old might pedal around the patio – but with a daily rental that even that same two-year old could afford, and with enough left over for a lolly.

Manolo’s driving was predictably Spanish in nature, but thankfully it didn’t prevent us from arriving in one piece.

And once we had navigated our way around the vagaries of Palma, found the Comisaría de Policía and queued for over an hour behind a seemingly endless line of people of primarily Maghreb and Latin American extraction, we were eventually able to hand in my documentation and told to return in three months to collect the card.

The parking ticket we found on the windscreen of the Twingo seemed no more that a minor irritation now that the main point of our visit had been successfully carried out.

So, four months later, (Manolo – well-versed in Spanish bureaucracy – thought it wise to give them a little longer) we went through the whole sorry process again. This time in a purple Twingo and with a parking ticket issued before we had even left Puerto Alcúdia, indeed Manolo was still in the car at the time.

When we eventually arrived in Palma, after a furious row and a hair-raising journey down the carretera, it was only to be told that the card wasn’t ready. We were justifiably incensed, but even the fact that we had travelled all the way from the furthest tip of the island didn’t seem to inspire any need for an apology in the gentleman behind the counter.

He stared blankly past our gesticulating hands, and reiterated in a bored monotone that we could always return in another three months, when the card just might be ready.

The old adage of once bitten etc engraved heavily on our hearts, we decided to leave it for a further six months before returning again. This time taking the precaution of telephoning first: the official that we spoke to couldn’t actually lay her hand on the card, but assured us that it would definitely be ready for us – if there had been any problems with my application, we would have been informed, she assured us.

Off we set in another of our preschool vehicles – this time managing to avoid a parking ticket at both point of departure and destination.

But my residencia wasn’t ready.

They had lost the passport photographs and could not proceed without them. Notification had been sent, but to my old address.

‘But I gave you my new address last time I was here. That was six months ago.’

‘No puede ser. It’s not possible, Meeeess Lowe.’

‘Ah sí, es muy posible. Check your records.’ The woman resisted, but eventually gave in and there was much aggressive scrabbling in my file, her snooty expression giving away her barely repressed urge to prove me wrong, preferably in front of the interested audience of fellow foreigners that had gathered around, attracted by the raised voices and keen for a scandal.

She eventually held up a slip of paper, and read out the address printed on it: my new address. I waited in vain for an acknowledgement of their cock-up, I’m still waiting.

I was told to go back three months later. I never did.

Oh, and by the way. We got a speeding ticket in the town of Inca on our way home…