#but i am a completist and season seven still has rights

[lavidagaditana]

Seven Months. Already?!

7 June 2019

Conil de la Frontera--I’m clearly a terrible chronicler of this adventure. I have no excuses, but lots of reasons, for neglecting this little blog. Many of them have to do with the cellphone store and the ayuntamiento (or town hall), but I’m getting ahead of myself.

I last posted here in the middle of January after we visited Antequera and Malaga. Since then, so much has happened. Many friends have visited (and even some relatives!). This was a rare weekend without visitors, which is why I have a little time to catch up on the blog.

I’m going to try to avoid a lengthy narrative, so here goes (boring stuff first, but I am a completist, so bear with me):

Administrative issues: Well we thought we had successfully registered with the town in December (empadronamiento), but alas it was not meant to be. Lesson #1: when the town sends you an official looking document, read it before filing it away. Google Translate is your friend.

Here we are on December 14 after our third visit to the ayuntamiento. We look happy because we mistakenly believe we have successfully registered. Not so fast people . . . .

Long story short (and really not complete even now): we didn’t follow the instructions in above-mentioned letter so they cancelled our application back in December. They didn’t tell us that until February when they sent us a letter by registered mail. We returned to the ayuntamiento to correct the situation, filled in some forms, got them stamped, and left. Apparently, that was a complete waste of time because those forms went nowhere (don’t ask). We didn’t know that until May when our attorney said we needed to prove we were registered in order to get a certification of our tax residency. Back to the ayuntamiento to get some proof of our registration. Oh, wait. We aren’t registered you say?

We had to start over from the beginning, this time with someone from our attorney’s office with us. We still don’t know if we are registered, but we got the tax residency certificate, so all is not lost. La lucha continua.

Internet and cellphone: I won’t bore you (much). But no account of our first six months in Conil would be complete without mentioning how much time we actually spent in the Airwifi and Yoigo shops. Things went awry almost immediately after having the fiber optic internet installed. We decided to switch providers, but wanted to keep our cellphone number. Right. Buena suerte.

We are on a first name basis with the staff at each of these stores. The good news is that we finally have reliable fast internet and television via Yoigo and relatively reliable cellphone from Airwifi. This took at least four months and countless store visits. Thanks to Carrie Austin d’Arbustino’s intervention in April, things seem to have fallen into place. Sort of. Still no Sky TV channels, but I don’t really care anymore thanks to HBO España. (One small hiccup with HBO España: the Dothraki in Game of Thrones has Spanish subtitles. Doh!)

Spanish: Each of us has a tutor now. We meet with our respective maestras a couple or three times per week for 90 minutes. I’m not sure if our Spanish is improving. Ask me in another six months. Poco a poco. . .

Our town: We love Conil. Our little townhouse is clean and comfortable, and our landlords Bob and Karen are very nice. We’re very close to the beach and clifftop paths, and a short ride to town.

In April the beach bars, or chiringuitos (see above), started to open for the season. Now it’s possible to walk from our house to town along the beach, stopping for cañas or copas at several bars along the way. We’ve identified a half dozen favorite restaurants in or near Conil. The staff are very nice and make us feel welcome even though no hablamos español. Standouts in town are Feduchy, Barra de Rosario, Vascook, and Mangiafoho (for excellent pizza and pasta!!). Nearby standouts include Patria near La Muela, Califa Express in Vejer, and Codigo de Barra in Cadiz.

Transportation: Since my last post, we bought a Vespa and a Volkswagen Golf. Pro tip: Don’t expect to drop into a car dealership and test drive a car; you have to make an appointment. Also, do not expect to drop into a car dealership and drive away in a new car. It took us several visits to the dealership just to test drive and then order a car, and then we had to wait a few months for our car to arrive. Perhaps Cadiz is different from other parts of Spain, but I got the impression in both VW dealerships we visited that no one was particularly desperate to sell us a car. I guess it’s better than the alternative, i.e., feeling like a captive at the dealership until you leave with a car.

The Vespa purchase was simpler once we figured out which shop in our town is the authorized dealer (not as easy as it sounds). We chose the scooter from a catalog and it came from Jerez. It’s vibrant, to say the least. Whoa! We’re calling it El Sapito.

More to come. . .

#conildelafrontera #chiringuito #vespa #empadronamiento #padron #andalucía #spain #movetospain