What I saw in front of me, a few hundred meters to the West was a huge tower of black smoke billowing up from something in the distance, clearly a big fire!

I didn’t hear any sirens of firetrucks, which are pretty common here in Valencia any time of day, and as it was already around 3am I decided to give the firemen a heads up.

So I called 112 and explained to the guy on the phone in my best Spanish that what i saw from my terrace had to be a big fire! The guy asked some question about directions, but as I only have a bird’s eye view from the top and not very familiar with the street names around here, I could only give him compass directions from my location.

We eventually settled on a location where the fire must be and there were already fire engines being sent there, so not to worry. OK vale.

About a week or 10 days later I received a call from the police. At first I didn’t have a clue who was on the phone and what this person wanted, but after a while I understood the meaning. This guy wanted to know why I called the fire department 7-10 days ago.

“Uhuh, because there was a fire?!”

“Was the fire on this and that address?”

How the fuck would I know? So I explained (again) that I saw the fire from my terrace late at night and thought it a smart idea to call the fire department.

In the end the guy thanked me and hung up.

This evening Mia and I went for a smoke on the terrace and again, in approximately the same direction as last time, I saw an enormous amount of smoke rising up from whatever apartment building.

This time however, I just stood and watched, being my total ignorant self, as it is clear to me that calling the fire department in this country is not entirely appreciated…

As I write this I smell melting plastic and faintly I heard a siren in the distance. I guess they found it…

That the rules of the EU and the process of getting married in Spain would be so ridiculous and tedious we did not realize and now, 11 months after we set the process in motion there is still no light at the end of the black hole!

This morning I had to make another trip to Alfafar, the town where we have registered to get married (people told us it would be easier there than in Valencia).

As it turned out it was my documents that were a problem.

In general to get married you need your birth certificate and a document that proves that you’re single. According to the Convention of Vienna signed by most European countries including Spain on September 8th, 1976, you ask for the international version of the document in your country of birth and that’s that.

Two months after handing in those documents, I was told that my papers were not in order: they needed the original document with an Apostille (The Convention of Vienna replaced the earlier Apostille rule of the Convention of The Hague from October 5th, 1961) on it! Now that alone goes directly against the European Law and many people suggested us to start a legal procedure against the local Government of Alfafar!
We would probably win such a procedure, however it is highly unlikely that such a procedure takes under five years! That alone is the reason that they get away with imposing such ridiculous rules.

Anyways, after we finally delivered all correct papers sometime at the end of September last year, we could go into the next step of the procedure: the interview.
It seems that many people who get married for economical reasons “fall through the basket” during the interview; of course for us, it was more like a joke.

After the interview our “case” went to Torrent’s Police Station, one establishment higher than in Alfafar. Like real criminals our finger- and palm-prints were taken and again they checked if we were both legal in Spain. This was end of December 2009. An hour later our papers were on its way to the “Carta Roja”, some kind of High Court Institution that checks if the entire procedure is followed correctly.

Well, someone forgot something along the way, or they just changed the rules again, they now need a “traduccion jurado” an official legal translation of my birth certificate and proof of being single document!!!

THIS IS COMPLETELY INSANE!!!!!!!

They have the original documents.
The original documents both have an Apostille.
They have the official international version of both documents.

And now they need an official translation?!?!?! Mind you, the international document has Spanish on it for crying out loud!

And there is nothing you can do, but obey to this insanity and hope that by the time they finally approve our wedding plans we haven’t left this country already…

[singlepic id=444 w=240 h=180 float=center]
[singlepic id=445 w=240 h=180 float=center]

The crane itself has been standing motionless for months now, probably there is no (more) money to finish the project. I actually use the crane to see from which direction the wind is blowing as that is the only movements it makes. The wind is blowing from the east now…

Since Mia has left for Beijing earlier this week to visit her mum in hospital, it has been pretty quiet here and therefore I took up the idea to go buy some plants for the terrace in the weekend.

Bart – a friend from Belgium who works here for Toyota – offered to drive me to the garden center situated in the outskirts to the Northwest of Valencia.

I had quite a few pots to fill so we went on a shopping spree! Bart took the opportunity to buy some nice plants for his home too. The plants I got are two palm trees (a big one and a small one), bougainvillea, jasmine, lavender, Calamondin (citrus mitis) and Strelitzia (or Bird of Paradise).

Back at home we first potted Bart’s plants and then I started on mine. Then Bart’s girlfriend Inge joined us for a great hamburger BBQ and afterwards we did a total intense cleaning on the terrace.

So from now on I will have another “job” to do: to keep the plants alive by feeding them with water and fertilizer and of course talking to them and to clean the terrace on a very regular basis. Guess where I am off to now…

It was a fantastic party that we celebrated with our new friends in Valencia. Apart from the fresh “haring” (Dutch raw fish) that Miriam’s parents brought for us, Mia made her Asian interpretation of paella!

We took some photos, but unfortunately I forgot to re-adjust the settings of my camera, so the quality is not quite good.

Above you see the rooftop terrace of our new home. In fact it is only half of it, the entire terrace measures about 13×4 meters.

We are totally in love with it – fell into love from the first day we saw it – and we expect to spend the biggest part of our life in Valencia on it; that is of course weather permitting. And that should not be a real problem, although Valencia has yet to live up to it’s promise that “it is the city where the sun always shines”, the temperatures are just great now.

Something that you of course realize after the fact is that a big rooftop terrace also brings along quite a few extra tasks. Mia has been so kind to appoint me to take care of the terrace and so I have just finished my weekly scrubbing and cleaning of our outside living quarters.

This afternoon I will test the BBQ-set we bought last week and if all goes well we’re ready and set for the long hot summer!

Dear friends,

As you probably have heard, Mia and I have recently moved home. If you haven’t heard yet, you can see a photo of our rooftop terrace above.

To create a bit more ambiance on that rooftop terrace we are inviting you for our Housewarming Party on Saturday, June 13.

Our new home is just around the corner from the old one.

You are welcome from 5pm onwards for a drink and a bite. We will not be serving an x-course dinner, but there will be plenty of F & B!
We have no special wishes as we basically have everything already double (if not triple) , just come to enjoy an afternoon/evening with friends! Of course if you would like to bring something to drink, we are the last to decline that!

Please RSVP before Thursday, June 11 noon time so we know for how many people we can prepare. You can use the form at the bottom of this page, under the map.

We are looking forward welcoming you to our new home on Saturday, June 13!

Mia & Piet

You can use the navigation in the map to best find the way from your home to ours. Metro stop Benimaclet is 5-10mins walk away from us, tram stop Primado Reig is a 3min walk as are the bus stops of line 8, 11, 89 and 90. Parking of cars is a general pain in the butt and coming with one is not advisable anyway because of the (amount of) booze that you will likely consume!

[for privacy reasons map is deleted]

Since we’re moving soon, we’ll also be needing a new internet connection. We currently have ONO and they’re reasonably ok. The package we now have includes 12MB internet, TV with some international channels and telephone with free calls to domestic landlines.

The international channels of the TV are a joke, so we decided that we no longer need that, especially also because our new apartment has a satellite dish installed on the roof. I guess if we can get a decoder from somewhere, we can receive whatever we want.

With normal Skype, Skype Out and our mobile phones we hardly use our land line, therefore the “free calls promotion” is just not worth the hassle. You still end up paying a fee for the phone line being in your home, I think in the end it’s just not worth it.

The 12 MB internet translates to 500 kbps, which so far I never reached, but that might also be because Mia uses part of it via Wifi. I am sometimes under the impression that our internet connection in China was faster than we have here.

When I started to look around for internet providers I noticed that ONO has this fantastic offer: 50 MB speed via optic fiber for only EUR 60 per month!

Wow, that’s just what I need!

I looked everywhere around their site to see if we need any special requirements to have this package installed, but couldn’t find any, so I decided to give them a call. Friendly people on the phone, but when they asked me where I wanted this new package to be installed, they informed me that this offer is only valid for Madrid. Pfffff…

In The Netherlands we call this misleading advertising and there are actually laws against that. What a bunch of bullocks. How can you set up a nationwide website for something that you can only offer in Madrid? Spain has around 45 million people and only 3 million of them live in the capital. I really don’t get the point of this “stunt”, apart from leaving your customers with a general feeling of disappointment.

And what is my alternative? 12 MB for EUR 50 per month. Really a not so good deal…

We enjoyed our time very much and saw many animals in the specially designed areas of Madagascar, Equatorial Africa and the Savannah. In the “amphitheatre” there was a “show” with birds, giant ones even condors that were flying closely over the gathered audience. As one can understand it is much more difficult to train a bird than let’s say a dolphin, and it was truly amazing!

We only took a few pictures, most of them in our head, but Mike of HolaValencia has described his first visit to Bioparc with a lot more photos.

As I write this, it is not even 10 degrees Celsius and although April is traditionally one of the wetter months, the low temperatures are definitely not traditional.

Before we came to Valencia we were under the impression that especially this area was great to live and many sources informed us that Valencia has 300 days of sun per year. Well, I have been here now for 6 months and a bit and I can tell you that that is a bunch of bull! I have seen more rain here in half a year than in the past 10 years in China for crying out loud!

In some parts of Valencia province it is even snowing as the video (in Spanish) below will show you: