Getting Ready to Travel

I can’t believe it’s March already; how the time flies. As I head into my sixth month in Valencia (and seventh in Spain!), I feel strangely at home here. Maybe it’s the neighbourhood, maybe it’s the weather, maybe it’s Sagrario’s warm hospitality, maybe it’s the new friends I’ve made, or maybe it’s all of these things. It will definitely be hard to leave, eventually.

I’m about to get my first taste of what it’s like outside of Comunidad Valenciana when I get to travel to Madrid in early March to visit the Polish Consulate to renew my passport. I may have mentioned this earlier, but my relatively hassle-free stay in Spain has been made easy primarily by my being an EU citizen. Finally, having been born in Poland has come in handy for something! That said, my unused-until-2020 Polish passport was issued in 2011 and expires August 31, 2021. This means I couldn’t renew it before departure (you can only renew a passport if it expires within a year of when you do it) so I knew all along I would have to do it at some point when in Spain. I’d been dreading the process and delaying it for a while because I remember all too well how painful it was to have the thing issued in the first place. However, knowing that it can take an indeterminate amount of time to get the replacement, I knew I had to start thinking about it sooner rather than later. I figured six months should be enough time, even with Covid and other typical bureaucratic delays in play. I made myself an appointment at the consulate in Madrid for March 2nd, bought my train ticket, and booked a room for the night. I didn’t really have to stay over night but the temptation was just overwhelming so I couldn’t say no. Plus I had to make sure I had plenty of time should anything go wrong. I always like to have at least a Plan B.

Now, you’d think it was easy to just hop on the train and voilà, I’d be in the capital in a couple of hours. Not so easy, I’m afraid. First, the borders between the comunidades are, technically, closed to non-essential travel. There are checkpoints for those travelling by car on all major routes, and I envisioned similar police presence at the train station. In order to prove I had a legitimate reason for travelling I had to have proof of an appointment at the consulate (✅). In order to be let back into Comunidad Valenciana I had to have proof of residence here, which of course I don’t have, since I’m only visiting still, albeit longer than I had planned. To have proof of this Sagrario had to write me a formal letter stating that I was currently staying at her house and I was just going to Madrid on some consular business so please let me back in. Also ✅. Second, I had to have a form filled out from the Polish government asking for the renewal of a passport which I found very simple and much shorter than even the Canadian ones. Hmmm, fancy that, eh? Also ✅. Plus I needed passport photos and a bunch of cash to pay for the passport, because why would the Polish government ever accept reasonable forms of payment? Nah-uh, cash only, please and thank you. I had been hoarding my cash until now since the banks charge so much for taking it out of their machines, so maybe that was a good strategy because now I don’t have to worry too much about having enough.

I also had to have all these things printed out but nobody I’ve met here yet has a printer at home (at least one that works). So I had to find a place to print the forms/letters out, make yet more photocopies of my passport (I have many now but some will become useless once I get the new one), and also find a place to have my passport photo (🤨) taken. The printing of the papers was simple enough; there are many places that do that sort of thing for people and they’re really quite cheap, making me think that having a printer at home may not be truly necessary, especially knowing how temperamental printers are (see Eddie Izzard’s hilarious take on that here).

I got lucky at the first place I went to: not only do they print stuff for people, they also take passport photos! Great, I could kill two birds with one stone and save myself time. Unfortunately, the convenience turned out to be of much lesser value than I previously thought. I was pleasantly surprised that the size of the photo the Poles wanted wasn’t an odd one like it is in Canada; it actually matches perfectly the typical carnet size everyone gets here for everything. What I didn’t count on is that the “everything” in the previous sentence doesn’t seem to have many rules on quality, lighting, facial expressions, size, you name it. I knew I couldn’t smile but that was it and trusted the fellow to know what ID photos should look like. Big mistake. Not only was my face one of a serial killer, however expected, everything else was wrong about it too, but, of course, I didn’t realize that until I got home and found the correct page on the Polish government page explaining the requirements. My question is: why do they always use young, pretty, and very photogenic models who couldn’t look bad if they tried and not normal people? Comparing their samples to my best photo (if I had one) would still make me certain of rejection by the consular agent! After a sleepless night worrying about my ugly photo I went to the place I had originally chosen and spent more money for quality over convenience. It was one of the oldest, if not THE oldest, photography shop in Valencia, having been in business since 1901! It was a really cool place with a bunch of very old equipment and even older images of notable people (at least they looked important), and two men inside looking not at all young themselves. If this is a family business, it doesn’t look like there is anyone in the younger generation waiting to take over but I could be wrong. They did have some fancy new equipment in the back so maybe they are ready for the future, even if outwardly the place looks like a relic. The younger fellow kindly took a decent (for a non-smiling demeanour) photo of me and reluctantly adjusted the size to match the Polish requirements. Eventually I gave up and hoped that the new photos would be enough. Oh, did I mention that whether I liked it or not, they came in a pack of eight? What am I going to do with six ugly photos of me? Plus the original, even uglier eight. I’m sure as heck not saving them for any local IDs, especially since here you can actually smile on your ID! I will definitely get new ones done if I ever need them 😉

I was finally loaded up with paperwork, small backpack for the overnight stay, and loads of excitement for my new adventure. The next few posts will cover my two days in Madrid.