Monday, August 27, 2018

Legal Residents

The big news today is the completion of a process that started way back in January. Today we went to the Plaza de Espana (the big gov't building here in Sevilla where immigration matters are handled) and received our national ID cards:
 Normally, the longest you can stay in Spain with a US passport is 90 days. If you leave the country after 90 days and immediately return, you get another 90 days. Once that second 90 day period ends, you must leave Spain for the rest of the calendar year (i.e. no more than 180 days in Spain using just your US passport). In fact, that rule applies to the whole European Union, so we couldn't just shift to Germany or England after 180 days either. We would have to exit the EU for the rest of the calendar year. Though it was a long and stunningly bureaucratic process, we can now remain in Spain until July 2, 2019.

After leaving the immigration office, we walked through the adjacent park and saw this interesting statue, Estatua de Bécquer, a famous Spanish writer from Sevilla:
  The rest of the day went sort of according to our routine. go to the market, do math, Laura goes to language class etc. I made a quick run to the closest market (the Mas) this afternoon. This is the place we go for small, quick items when we don't feel like going all the way down to the Mercadona. Along the way, I noticed this semi-charred tree along the street. I'd passed this tree many, many times before, but never noticed the burnt tree. Since it's so close to the flat, I plan to ask Mario how it happened. It can't have been a forest fire, haha. Car accident?
Also, we had our first actual drops of rain today. If you look closely, you can see the slight dampness of the street in front of our flat:

Catching up a bit on photos from yesterday. We spent most of the day in Málaga. Since there was no bike race, we mostly wandered around and hit the beach. There was a bit of a craft fair going on along the beach:
 The beach had these "islands" of grass with palm trees. I very much preferred setting up camp on the grass in the shade of a palm tree to laying out on the sand. We could easily jump in the water to cool off, then scoot back to the "island".


 As we walked to the bus station we went through the aptly named Parque de Málaga. Here's one of many fountains.
 Also, this little side salad came with packets of vinegar and olive oil for dressing. Also had a splash of tuna, it was a tasty combo for a side salad: