They say bad things come in threes. Well, not in Spain it
would seem. Actually, bad things come in barrels of 3000. Of course, you’re all
saying; “but you’re in Spain! It’s
sunny – enjoy it!” However, Spain is not the holiday destination you imagine.
It is, in fact, a disguised third world country. We have yet to complete the
simplest of tasks hassle-free. I couldn’t bear to start at the very beginning
(it would take a lot of typing and a lot of reading) but I shall begin at
Monday – the day we moved into the new apartment.
Up bright and early to meet Britannia Removals and watched
as they unloaded our belongings. Only two thirds though. They split our consignment.
So many of our things are quite possibly floating about in Cuba for all we
know. Including Mother’s very important computer containing vital fancy shmancy
work documents. So plenty of angry phone calls have been overheard by our
now-nervous, new neighbours. “Yes madam, I understand – it’s completely our
fault… although have you perhaps considered that there is currently six inches
of snow in the UK so…”
Problem number two begins at our highly-frequented DIY
store. All our lights had to be newly fitted (because Spain’s policy entitles
the builders to leave wires hanging from the ceiling and no lighting
arrangements… “That’s normal in Spain”.
This country is clearly backwards but we paddle on, optimistic. (I must mention
that we were utterly prepared for snags like this, however these ‘snags’ are
actually whopping great black holes in unexpected places.) Spending several
hours (half a day) discussing light fittings with the expert and we settle for
the most simple, discreet fixtures – ‘safe’ being the best, let’s not
complicate matters with fans and whistles. The lights arrive home, along with
the installer. Oh dear – the lovely man at the store has wrongly informed us
that the spotlights shine warm amarillo. In
fact, a harsh blue laser beams from the ceiling like a UFO. No worries, we
shall just simply remove the bulbs and exchange them (bulb removal again more
difficult than usual; wonky springs, terrible Spanish connections and
complicated metal sticks?!) Oh no, you can’t return the lights without the box.
Right, we shall have to purchase the correct bulbs ourselves and balance on
ladders at midnight in the pitch black trying to assemble a crazy contraption on
the ceiling. “Ah, it’s alright! Mañana,
mañana! Sit in the sun! Have some paella, Señoritas!”
More general functioning problems. Mainly, that we can’t
actually function. All of our kitchen utensils are still in a foreign country
on a truck somewhere mingling with other people’s furniture. What on earth
should we do?! Ok. Compensation from Britannia. We shall need to either eat out
or purchase knives, forks, spoons, a chopping board, chopping knives, cups,
glasses, plates, bowls, pots, pans, trays, a can opener, scissors… “We’ll give
you £50 for the inconvenience. Terribly sorry.” Good, that’ll get us a tenth of
the way to civilisation, thank you. Right, we’ll have frozen meals then. It won’t
be for long. So we totter home with our delightful Spanish meals and switch on
the oven. Suddenly it’s pitch black. Good, the oven has blown the electrics.
Because Spain cannot build a Lego Darth Vader so there’s really no hope for any
sort of decent construction. Alright, we’ll use this nice new microwave oven. Nope. It turns out they’ve
labelled it incorrectly (really?!) – it’s actually a microwave/grill. So we’ll
just microwave the frozen pizza and hope we don’t die of food poisoning? Yes. 60
seconds later we’re in complete darkness again. The microwave has tripped the
electricity too. Excellent. Giving up on nutrition we retire to sleep at 1am
(this works).
Have I mentioned the internet and the complete mess the
Spanish have made of it? Quite possibly. It’s taken us weeks of figuring out
how to even find internet but eventually we consulted the most popular
provider. Aha! A problem! They can’t find our address on the system. Our home
doesn’t exist, apparently. Spain creates an address that is so, utterly
complicated for no reason at all. Firstly, our postcode covers half the
country. Secondly, we don’t actually live on the road our address states.
Thirdly, there are several ‘No.4’s on
this street.
More exciting issues; the Sahara sand storm has coated our
red car in a delightful terracotta dust. So we opt for a car wash while we
visit the DIY store (again). One hour later we return to a broken hydraulic hinge.
“No, no! Not us… Is coincidence!” Also, brake light is broken. An
extraordinarily long process ensued, arguments and a lot of questionable
translation; “Honey! Quickly! What is this man saying?! I DON’T UNDERSTAND – NO
COMPRENDO! Oh god, tell the man they’ve broken my car! – NO ES COINCIDENCE! YOU
BREAK CAR!”
Yesterday we had the lovely locksmith install bolts on the
windows because apparently gates, grills, alarms and metal blinds are not quite
enough. So we joined our neighbours and ventured into the highest security (so
now it’s become quite a lengthy process to even leave the house). Lovely
ex-army Dave steps in with his tools. Actually, before any of us were able to ‘step
in’ he had to magically unlock our door with no keys as we skilfully managed to
lock ourselves out. Onto the bolts. Crackkkk.
Ah, Dave has cracked the glass doors. Why not add that to our to-do list?
Fiddle, fiddle, fiddle in the kitchen and all of a sudden Dave looks up at the
lights and his hand edges towards the ceiling… “DON’T TOUCH THOSE!!!!” shrieks
Mother but it’s sadly too late and disaster strikes again. The precariously
placed spring bounces off and the spotlight gleefully bungees out of the ceiling.
“Cor blimey, this place is a death trap, eh?!” (Liverpudlian – although Mother
made the almighty sin of suggesting he was from Manchester. I backed away.)
Many more obstacles to overcome and then rant about on here
(naturally) but perhaps I shall save them for Pt 2? Such fun :p
No comments:
Post a Comment