Mornings in Alicante

As many of you know Miki is an inveterate morning walker. As such, she observes and sometimes photographs the early goings on.

The city of Alicante seems to put a lot of effort into keeping things clean.  There are water trucks with a high pressure hoses manned by city workers that make their rounds through the neighborhoods spraying the sidewalks and streets. The sidewalk sweeper machines are also quite frequently seen. There are workers  with brooms and jumbo dustbins who manually sweep the sidewalks; they also empty the small trash receptacles which I suspect are mainly filled with doggie poop bags as I see LOTS of dog walkers (most of them are responsible picker-uppers).

  

If I decide to walk along the beach-side promenade there’s another whole set of activities: sunrise, sunrise watchers, sunrise photo takers, runners, walkers, pole-walkers, muscle beach, sunrise yoga, employees getting the beach bars ready, treasure hunters, and more.

 

  

 

Needless to say, the morning walk is always interesting and entertaining.

Post script: We are a step closer to obtaining our national ID cards. Dennis had his appointment this past week and will have his card one month from the date of the appointment. We have been postponing trips outside of Spain until we got our cards, but after September, look out Europe, here we come!

Salud.

Alicante Mercado

In our travels in Spain, we have noted that most of the larger cities in the country will have at least one and sometimes a few large markets where produce, bakery goods, nuts, olives, eggs, meats, fish and other wares are sold by vendors.

The back of the Mercado.

Flower stall outside the building

Alicante has a magnificent mercado located in the downtown. There are two floors with the top floor being mostly meats and poultry and the downstairs being mostly fish and vegetables.

 

 

Maps of the mercado layout. Red are the meat and poultry vendors, blue are fish vendors and green are vegetable vendors.

The market is usually very busy and vibrant as the vendors serve the customers lining up at their stalls.

And you can get just about any part of the animal that you may want. Spanish cuisine includes many organ meats, so you see these items displayed prominently throughout the displays.

Need a goat’s head or some pig’s feet? No problem, they have you covered.

The fish market is also a cornucopia of seafood featuring the daily local catches. The variety of seafood is vastly larger than that normally seen in the US, that’s for sure.

And then there are the vegetable stands. We wander through the stalls and wonder at the wide variety of fruits and veggies that we are unfamiliar with. We usually end up buying things that we are familiar with, but we should start branching out to include some of the other produce.

In addition to the food stalls there are takeout restaurants and bars where one can get a bite to eat and a caña (small beer), vino or vermut (vermouth is a big thing here).

It is quite entertaining to sit and sip a vermut while noshing on some tapas and enjoying some people watching. You can witness quite the cross-section of the human population as they go about their shopping.

After filling our bags and quenching our thirsts, we head back to our apartment, knowing we will return again and again.

Salud

Castillo de Santa Barbara

Like many towns in Spain, Alicante has a castle, Castillo de Santa Barbara. It is located in the center of the city on Mount Benacantil (elev. 166 m) and commands an excellent view of the bay and surrounding lands. The image of the mountain from the beach resembles a face and thus has been dubbed “the face of the Moor”.

The origins of the castle date back to the 9^th century and at the time of Muslim control of the Iberian Peninsula. In 1248, the castle was captured by Castilian forces and was named after Saint Barbara, upon whose feast day the castle was recaptured from the Arabs.

From the 18^th century the military role of the castle declined and it was sometimes used as a prison. During the Spanish Civil War it was used by Franco in 1939 as a concentration camp for Republican prisoners.

From 1940 to 1963 it remained abandoned until it was opened to the public. Elevators accessed by a tunnel were installed to provide passage up to the castle from the beach area.

We, of course, climbed up to the top from the town, passing through the very scenic Calle San Rafael on the way up.

The castle is free to enter and you can purchase tours, workshops and access to other programs such as wine tastings, beer tastings and chocolate tastings.

Maureen tried to break up a fight while we were up there.

Standing on the ramparts, you can appreciate the strategic importance of the castle and enjoy some of the best views in Alicante.

Salud.

Photos around town

 Just a few photos from around town today. 

Advance team headed to the beach

Not available in the US!

Look closely, "cola" flavored antacid medication. Yum.

Mail motorcycles.

I believe this movie is called Freakier Friday in the US.  The title here translates to Put Yourself in My Place Again.  

Mr. Peabody anyone?

This is a small skateboard area dedicated to a Spanish man who tried to intervene during a 2017 attack in London - 3 terrorists set off a couple of bombs, included on the London Bridge, then drove along the street running over pedestrians, then getting out of their vehicle to stab several people. His actions allowed several people to get to safety. Sadly, he was killed. 

Sorry to end on such a somber note.  Only happy pictures next time.

Salud 

Miki

Bureaucracy! Damn Bureaucracy!

Spain is infamous for its bureaucracy. There are a myriad of registrations one must apply for in order to establish residency in the country and none of the processes are straightforward. On top of this, the government websites of the various agencies are difficult to navigate, especially if you are not a native Spanish speaker.

After our arrival in Spain, our first order of business was to find a long-term residence (defined as at least 6 months) in order to be able to start our registration process.

We were able to find a very nice two-bedroom apartment in the San Juan Playa area of Alicante. The complex has five buildings and includes amenities such as indoor and outdoor pools, a gymnasium, padel courts (similar to pickleball, but they use a slightly smaller tennis ball), and a multi-use court (basketball, tennis, soccer). The rent is very reasonable, and we are quite comfortable in our new abode.

To complete the lease we needed to open a Spanish bank account as the payment of utilities - gas, electric, water - are automatically deducted from the account. Once we had our apartment, we needed to register our address with the City of Alicante.  This required a pre-scheduled in-person visit (cita previa) at the town hall with the appropriate documentation.

We had retained the services of a lawyer to help us with the process, and she was able to set up the appointment and provide the application and list of documents we needed. The appointment went quite smoothly and efficiently, and we completed our registration within half an hour, receiving the necessary documentation.

Now we were ready to apply for our national ID cards (known as the TIE).  Full speed ahead!

Well, not so much. Getting appointments for the TIE proved to be a challenge.

You need to apply for an appointment with a local office of the National Police (who administer the national ID’s). Our lawyer was checking on-line daily for appointment slots with no luck. Each time it would respond that no appointments were available at that time.

Technically, we were supposed to get our appointments within the first three months of our arrival in Spain, but that date came and went.

We checked in with the lawyer several times and were always told that they "have not been able to book appointments in the province of Alicante for weeks". We were becoming quite discouraged by the process and looked into checking for appointments ourselves online. No luck. We noticed that there were two options for making appointments; with or without a CLAVE (?).

What the hell is a CLAVE? It is a digital registration obtained through the local government. We asked our lawyer about it and she said they had a CLAVE and were using it to apply with no luck.

We did Google searches for tips on getting an appointment and found a variety of suggestions (ideal time of day to submit request, contacting someone using bots/algorithms who then sold appointments, etc.).  For one week Maureen began obsessively checking for appointment availability multiple times a day to no avail. 

Finally, we decided to apply for a CLAVE ourselves in order to improve your chances of getting an appointment.

Dutifully we made an appointment with the city agency that issues the certificates and were told by the very nice lady helping us “Sorry, you cannot get a CLAVE because you don't have a TIE or national identity card”. Catch 22! Arrrrrrrgh! 

"... however what you need is a digital certificate". She helped us with that and we went home to try again.

Could this be the magic bullet? We could only hope. Alas, we checked and checked to no avail.

Maureen started obsessively checking again, this time clicking the box for "with CLAVE or digital certificate" and in just over 24 hours succeeded. Saturday at about 3 pm was the golden hour. Hallelujah!

We quickly made her appointment, then got one for me as well. Of course they were not on the same date, but at least we got appointments!

We notified our lawyer of our success, and she provided us with the list of necessary documents to bring.

But, one more snag. Checking the various web sites, it seemed our city registration form had to be issued within the previous three months. Ours was five months old. (Blood pressure rising)

We tried to get an appointment to renew the document, but were unable to do this in time for Maureen’s appointment. We decided to cross our fingers and hope that they would be lenient.

On August 6, Maureen emerged from the National Police facility with her approval in hand. Her actual ID card will take another month to get, but that is actually fast in Spain.

My appointment is not until the 27th of August, so a bit more of a wait, but at least we know what to expect now.

The lesson here is that while Spanish bureaucracy is complex and frustrating, the people who we have dealt with seem to acknowledge it and not be too hard-assed about it.

Salud.

 

Easter in Alicante

As we are sure our readers are aware, Spain is a VERY Catholic country and religious events are a big deal.

Easter, also known as Semana Santa (Holy Week) is one such major religious and cultural event.

The week is filled with processions where religious brotherhoods carry pasos (floats) through the streets. The floats are elaborate displays of religious imagery and usually depict either Christ or the Virgin Mary.

The floats are very heavy and the men, and sometimes women, carrying them must take frequent breaks during the long processions.

Along with the floats, participants dress in traditional clothes and are accompanied by marching bands which set the pace for the people carrying the floats. Some of the marchers hand out candies to the spectators as they proceed.

And then there are the Nazarenos (penitents) who are dressed in robes and hoods. Remind you of anything? The hoods symbolize a striving for closeness to heaven. 

The processions occur throughout the week and on a set schedule. This all culminates on Sunday when the brotherhoods march down the main thoroughfare in the city, one after another. Seating is set up along the sides as the processions last for hours and hours.

Kind of puts our celebration in the US to shame, don’t you think?

Salud!