“Sentient Nails Worry About Hammers” or “Notarizing Documents in Spain”

Our house in Manitou Springs went under contract before we moved to Spain. It still has not closed. That’s because real estate transactions move slowly so the prospective buyer has time to hire an idiot home inspector.

I’m not saying that all home inspectors are morons. That would be unfair to the home inspectors I have never met. I’m just saying every home buyer has a fundamental right hire an idiot inspector, if that’s what the purchaser wants to do. Most home buyers seem to exercise that right. Our buyers certainly did, but that’s another story.

Our story today begins in Spain. We have satisfactorily addressed all the inspector’s idiotic objections. The title company emails a dozen documents needing our signatures. Over half of them require notarized signatures.

Now you are sitting up in your seats. “Notarized signatures, you say? Please, Dan, don’t stop now! Tell us how you got your documents notarized!”

Your sarcasm is not unexpected. However, this story involves a pretty girl, assault weapons, and an Ambassador named “Duke.” I am lucky to have survived to tell the tale.

The near death experience could have been avoided if we had signed a power of attorney before we moved. That paper would have allowed a lawyer to sign all necessary documents in our stead. But we assumed that getting signatures notarized in Spain would be a simple process. We were as dumb as a home inspector!

I like to think our mistake was understandable. In the United States every law office has a secretary or paralegal who will notarize documents. Every bank has a notary public. They all offer notarial services free of charge to clients and customers.

In El Campello there are exactly two notaries. Our Spanish lawyer explained that ordinarily appointments to see a notary are made at least a week in advance. She knew one of the notaries quite well and said that if we show up at his office and prostrate ourselves and beg for an audience, maybe he will see us.

I thought that exposing my prostate sounded disrespectful and difficult, even with a flashlight. I soon realized, however, that I had misunderstood her advice. I blame her thick Spanish accent.

Denise and I appear at the notary’s office first thing the next morning. It is a very large office. I have been in silk stocking law firms with smaller reception areas. Behind the chest-high reception counter is a wall of books. I don’t know what is in the books but they have identical thick gray bindings. On our side of the counter there are chairs so people can sit and wait for His Esteemed Notariness to see them. There is a coffee table full of magazines. The magazines are from several different publishers, all of them dedicated to the profession of Notary Public.

A lady sits behind the counter. I approach her and very slowly begin reciting from memory two sentences learned from Google Translate: Tenemos una necesidad urgente de tener documentos notariados. Estos se relacionan con la venta de nuestra casa en los Estados Unidos y tenemos una fecha límite. I am only half way through when she holds up a finger, signaling me to stop. Apparently charmed by my slight American accent, she says, “Would you please speak English?”

I again explain what we need, this time in my native tongue. She takes my documents and leaves the reception area.

She returns. She says that she will make copies. The notary will look at the documents and in a week or ten days will tell us whether he can notarize our signatures. She says the documents probably will need to be translated and then get Apostilled (an internationally recognized stamp of authenticity). I want to calculate the probable cost but I do not have a slide ruler. Besides, the title company sent the documents with a note saying it wanted them back in only four days.

We consider our options. We could fly to London or Dublin. Get the documents notarized in an English speaking country. That presumably could be accomplished in a day. It wouldn’t be cheap, considering the last minute airline booking, but it would get the job done. Or, we discovered, we could go to the American embassy in Madrid. The embassy will notarize documents for American citizens.

I go to the embassy web site. They have one slot open. 11:45 a.m. the next day. I book the appointment.

How to get to Madrid? There are planes and trains, but last minute bookings for two people, that will be expensive. It will take too long to walk. Denise refuses to hitchhike. We have only one alternative. Rent a car.

Denise is thrilled.

I say a bad word. Have I mentioned that I dislike automobiles?

The car is a Fiat. Too small to be seen from space. Almost too small to be seen from across the room. It looks like someone put wheels on one of those school cafeteria tomato soup cans, gave it four windows and a motor, then painted it red. I have to admit, though, the red paint makes it look like a very sporty soup can.

Somehow we fit into the Fiat. We point it toward Madrid.

Spain has an interesting highway system. It has two more or less parallel roads leading to Madrid. One is a toll road. The other is not a toll road. The only distinguishing feature of the toll road is that from time to time you have to stop and pay to be on it. It is not smoother, shorter, or significantly less busy. From time to time, however, the two roads will intersect and Google Maps will direct you onto the toll road.

As Denise is driving I find an app created by Michelin, the French tire and restaurant rating company. The app promises to guide you wherever you want to go. It also offers the option of avoiding toll roads. Score! I download the app and plug in the address of the hotel where we will stay that evening.

The drive to Madrid takes between four and five hours. There are no cities between Alicante and Madrid, and very few towns.

Obviously the country is not cursed by an overabundance of rain. The landscape sometimes seems almost as barren as eastern Colorado, although it usually is more reminiscent of Kansas, except with hills. For miles we see recently plowed soil. The overturned dirt sometimes is red.

We see lots of vineyards and olive groves. We also see a surprising number of castles. I assume each castle has an interesting history. I resolve to find a book revealing their stories.

We become hungry. We agree to stop and sample local cuisine at a quaint restaurant called “Burger King.” This is in a tiny farm hamlet which is nicely situated in the middle of nowhere. We give our orders to a pretty young girl who seems to feel resentful about her station in life. She should be in the city where pretty girls are appreciated. She hates this nowhere town and she hates this Burger King and everyone who enters it. We have entered the Burger King and so she hates us. She is so openly disdainful and angry that we watch to be sure she does not spit in our food.

We return to the car and eat chicken sandwiches while Michelin Man tells us how to get back on the main highway.

We approach Madrid in the dark. We therefore are surprised when suddenly we are in a tunnel. The tunnel is huge, with multiple lanes in each direction. We are even more surprised when we do not emerge from the tunnel.

We drive for dozens of miles underground. We do not know it at the time, but Madrid has the longest and most complex underground roadway in Europe.

Even more surprising, we do not lose our connection to Michelin Man. Apparently the government transmits cell phone signals through the tunnels so that people will not miss their underground exits.

Eventually we emerge from the tunnel. For the next half hour Michelin Man directs us through a spider web of city streets. Finally an animated Michelin Man pops up on the screen waving a white layered arm in celebration. We have arrived!

We look around. We are in a residential neighborhood. Our hotel is not here. Michelin Man, you roly-poly bastard, we are tired and want to sleep and you have wasted our time! I want to bitch slap Michelin Man but he is only an animated character so all I can do is delete the app. It is an unsatisfying act of revenge.

I resume using Google Maps, which gets us to the city center. We pass by the embassy. The hotel supposedly is within two blocks of the embassy. We must be close. Finally Google Maps assures us we have arrived at our destination, but all we see are little restaurants and bars.

We find a place to pull over. I open a tiny red door and place a leg outside the Fiat. I unfold myself and walk back to our supposed destination. There, hidden by a tree and an awning I see an unlit black sign for the Bluesense Hotel.

The Internet which (as everyone knows) is a trustworthy resource, assured us that the Bluesense Hotel would be manned by multilingual staff. There would be free parking. Pictures revealed large immaculate rooms.

I pass through an unlit doorway. I see a dingy counter, just large enough to qualify for the name. Behind the counter is a man who looks like a taller version of Danny DeVito after a week-long bender. I approach Mr. DeVito and introduce myself. The man may speak many languages but none of them is English. I begin to suspect the Internet misled me.

I show the man an email confirmation of my reservation. He gives me a card key and a television remote and tells me my room number. I have never received a television remote upon checking in to a hotel. I wonder if this is a bad sign.

Using Google Translate I convey the question, “Where do we park the car?” He points down the street. The parking is free because the city will not charge us to use the street.

I walk back to the soup can and tell Denise the good news. “I found the hotel!” I hold up the remote. “And we won’t have to get up to change channels!” Denise is over the moon. She hates getting up to change channels.

We have been assigned Room 217. We start on Floor 0 and walk down a short hall with a threadbare carpet. We come to three doors. There are translucent arrows pointing up and down on either side of the middle door. We are confused because these do not look like elevator doors. These doors open on hinges, like the entry into your bathroom.

We cautiously enter an elevator and find it has more in common with a bathroom than just the door.

Once on the second floor we easily find Room 217. It is easy to find Room 217 because the room numbers are conveniently written on post-it notes affixed to each door with clear plastic tape.

There are those who by now would be worried about the room where they must spend the next ten hours. Not me, though. I had seen pictures on the Internet! They would be lovely!

We walk in and see that the room IS lovely, if you discount the hole someone punched in the drywall and the mold in the shower. I think about the hole in the wall. I imagine somewhere there is a man who believes he deserves a Nobel Peace Prize because he punched only the wall.

The next morning we get up and go for a walk. It is still dark but people are on their way to work. We walk by a fitness club where Spaniards are straining in response to encouraging shouts we do not understand. We walk by a young man, maybe in his late twenties, who is in a dark doorway, sitting on a sleeping bag. He is bent over, putting on tennis shoes. He is one of only three or four homeless people we have seen since moving to Spain. The man is clean and well groomed. He might be on his way to a job interview.

We decide to walk to the embassy. We see that it is a nice building with two entrances. We know that Spaniards must love Americans very much because there are two burly men by each entryway. All four men are armed with automatic weapons. Clearly they serve the same function as Hells Angels at a Rolling Stones concert. They protect the American ambassador from his adoring fans.

The ambassador’s name is Duke Buchon III. He is qualified to be ambassador because his first name is “Duke” and because he gave nearly a million dollars to Donald Trump and the Republican party. I am sure I will not meet Ambassador Duke while at the embassy, but maybe I will see him in the hallway. This excites me because my friend Steve Van Oel used to love reading Doonesbury. He will envy me for having actually seen Ambassador Duke!

At 11 a.m. we walk to the embassy. I am nervous because I will have to identify myself to the guards. My nervousness is entirely rational. The guards are carrying automatic weapons. Automatic weapons are tools used to kill people. Denise and I are people. We are nervous for the same reason sentient nails would be nervous around anyone with a hammer.

I approach a guard while whistling the Andy Griffith theme song. I do this so the guard knows I am not a threat. It works! I am not killed!

I show the guard a paper confirming my appointment. We are allowed through the entrance!

Now we are in a vestibule. We cannot proceed further until we give up our cell phones, our camera, and our watches. Our backpack is swabbed with white cotton. The cotton swab is tested. I am relieved to learn that we have not been carrying explosives.

The backpack, along with all the electronic devices, is put in a locker. We are given an orange plastic card bearing the number 45. A man tells us we can exchange the card for our things when we exit the building.

We go through a metal detector and are lead into a large room. Two of four walls are lined with 15 windows, a person behind each window. The windows are bullet proof glass. An embassy employee sits protected behind each bullet proof window. I think about the overlapping levels of security and wonder how many terrorists have targeted American notaries in Spain.

We are told to take a number from a dispenser. We do as we are told and sit in uncomfortable plastic chairs.

I look around. I want to find an explanation. Why does Ambassador Duke not want us to have our phones? Why must he separate us from our camera? And if you are feeling smug because you can think of answers to those questions, please tell me Mr. or Ms. Smartypants, why does Ambassador Duke think our watches should be kept in a secure locker?

Our number is called in fairly short order. Maybe even before our appointed time, although we can’t be sure because there are no clocks and Ambassador Duke has our timepieces. A video screen reveals that we should report to Window #15.

The man behind the bullet proof glass is Spanish, but his English is impeccable. We confirm that we are here for notary services. He looks at our documents. He counts them. Seven must be notarized. Two additional forms describe the type of identification the notary will use to be sure we are who we claimed to be. The Spanish man with excellent English tells us there will be a $50 charge for each notarized document. Seven times $50 brings the total to $350. He takes our credit card and tells us there will be a wait of about 20 minutes.

Twenty minutes later we are called back to Window #15. The man with excellent English tells us that the notary wants $50 for each document she has to sign. We must pay another $100 to get the notary to sign the documents identifying our ID’s. The man again gets our credit card. We are told to wait. We will be called.

We slowly begin to realize that Ambassador Duke takes our watches so that we don’t know how long he keeps us waiting. But in Spain siesta is at 2:00 p.m. We see shades being drawn on bullet proof glass and we know it is 2:00 p.m. We have been waiting over two hours.

An hour later I consider challenging one of the armed guards to a pillow fight. I know he will win because he has an assault weapon. Any expert will tell you that an AR-15 offers its owner a distinct pillow fight advantage. But at least I will have gotten Ambassador Duke’s attention.

Our number is called before I can force a guard to defend his manhood against a MyPillow onslaught. The notary, a young American woman with long straight hair, sits behind the new window. Denise chats with her about living in Spain but I think that for $450 this process should be extremely efficient. I poke Denise’s ribs. The notary sees this and says, “Your husband wants to get out of here.” I admire the notary’s keen intuition.

On the way out we trade the number 45 for our backpack, phones and watches. We stop by the two armed men standing in front of the plaque which is the American Embassy logo. I ask one of them if I may take their picture. He seems willing, but he talks to his partner in Spanish and then says no. They are nice about it though. I am glad I did not have to pillow-slap either of them.

We walk back to the Fiat where we find a decoration on the windshield. It is a ticket. All we can make of the printing is that the fine will be 90 euros, which seems to be a lot considering we have no idea what we did wrong. Possibly the police mistook our car for a soup can and the ticket is for littering.

The drive back to El Campello is very much like the drive to Madrid except we do not stop at Burger King. This is a shame because I am worried about the pretty girl. Will she find love? Will she kill a tourist as he fumbles for correct change? I hope she finds happiness before doing something regrettable with a Burger King spork.

Epilogue

If you ever drive a rented car in Madrid and get a parking ticket, guess what? You didn’t really get a parking ticket! What you got was notice that a ticket would be issued in about 30 days. Do you want to pay your fine right away and be done with it? Too bad! The ticket will be issued and mailed to the car’s registered owner, the rental company. Then and only then can the ticket be paid. Madrid will accept 45 euros as payment in full if the fine is paid within twenty days of the issue date.

Do you think you can count on the rental company to immediately notify you of the ticket so that you can save 45 euros? If so, you might want to consider a career in home inspection!