For the greater glory of the inheritance of the house we are renting from Mias (now late) grandfather and grandmother we have taken on us to complete some papers that will allow the children to take ownership of the house.
We were told that we should come in the morning, so obviously Monday morning at 9 AM we went to the police station in Alicante to have the paperwork sorted. As we arrived ready to have this little job sorted we were shrugged off by the constable who told us that there were no more residence numbers to be had today. Try again tomorrow, but come at 6 AM as the queing starts early. Hmm.. typical Spain we thought and returned the day after at the said time.
Now, I was under the expression that queing was something that was done in the Soviet Union to buy milk or at rock concerts with Michael Jackson; little did I know that in Spain they are practicing a different kind of queing: “giri queing” (danish, perker-køer):
Anyway, after we had all been standing there for 4-5 hours we did in fact manage to get into the police station, and the officer that assisted us was very helpful and by 1 PM we had our residence number. Quite a neat trick, but they might consider if there could be an alternative to having people arriving at 5 in the morning to be able to apply for a number.. Our hearts go out with the (many) poor people that finally after 5 hours waiting were told that this was a) the wrong queue b) wrong form or c) that they somehow had filled in something wrong or forgotten some element that was essential (though might not have been posted as an essential on any public boards or official forms).
But.. as we say – “that’s Spain for you – strikingly professional!”