Archive | June, 2024

Taxi Travails: Avoid these Mistakes

30 Jun

I want to alert folks to two incidents of taxi troubles I had during my recent travels. The first was in Istanbul while readying ourselves for our Venice Simplon-Orient-Express from Istanbul to Paris. After a day out seeing local sites like the Blue Mosque, Hagia Sophia and Grand Bazaar, we got in a taxi and gave our hotel destination, the driver asked with what currency we would pay and we said with US dollars. We then were driven in what seemed to be an unecessarily circuitous route, because he claimed there was excessive traffic. At the end, the fare was far more than it should have been so I said I needed to use my credit card which was in US dollars. He argued, insisting on cash, and was unwilling to take the credit card (in spite of it saying on his windows he did.) He told us to go to an ATM to get cash. At that point, we exited the vehicle and gave him the same cash as we had been charged for a similar taxi trip, and walked down a street toward our hotel where no vehicles could drive.

In Paris, I found a great live jazz venue, Le Duc des Lombards. After the main act and the jam session, I went to the nearby taxi rank (stand) where there were numerous taxis picking up passengers. I got in a vehicle that looked like the other taxis, but made the mistake of not looking at the meter when I got in, which I normally do. Already en route, I realized there was no meter. When we got to my hotel, he told me a ridiculously high fee for the same route I had taken earlier. I mentioned there was no meter showing the fees, and he claimed he was Uber. I told him I did not request Uber and that because I got in his vehicle at the taxi rank, I would not pay the amount he was trying to charge. I gave him an amount similar to what the charge was for the taxi to the jazz club, and then exited the vehicle.

Attempts by both drivers at continuing to be argumentive and trying to insist I pay more were ignored in both instances, and I went in a direction where neither could drive and where there were plenty of pedestrians.

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Ten Year Spanish Residency Renewal

5 Jun

I recently completed my 10 year Spanish residency renewal, which was fabulously easy, with apparent decreasing regulation the more years you have been residing in Spain. I will provide links to my initial non-lucrative Spanish residential visa, and the steps involved. I did my initial non-lucrative residential long-term visa in San Francisco (California), but keep in mind that when I did mine in 2013 Spanish embassies who processed them in different cities in the U.S. sometimes had different procedures, even differences between the embassies in San Francisco and Los Angeles.

I had always completed my initial, one year, two year, 2nd two year, and five year non-lucrative Spanish visa renewals myself, but for my 10 year, I decided to use a gestor or gestoria (administrator, manager, consultant who helps people to negotiate the particulars of the sometimes difficult to understand legal requirements) to assist with the process as it involved getting a Spanish criminal record check. In my area of the Costa Blanca, in Altea and Albir, I found a gestoria who confirmed I already had a long-term duration visa, but I still needed to renew it as my other 5 year visa (NIE) was expiring. I was given an appointment a few days later for which I was asked to bring my visa renewal application form, passport, NIE residency card, health insurance, tax paid, and padron (your registration in your town with your current address.) The gestoria simply asked me to send a photo of the aforementioned docs. (The links above to my prior blog posts about my Spanish residential visa and renewal applications had some expired links which I hoped I have removed.)

When I arrived, she had all the needed forms completed and I just needed to sign and pay what I felt was a reasonable fee for this quick, convenient process (133 Euros), done in less than 10 minutes. A few days later, I received notice from her office of my appointment to have my fingerprints taken at the police in Benidorm to complete the process, which was just a few days later. (I had heard of many complaints from people having difficulties securing appointments with the Benidorm police for the fingerprinting, but my gestoria apparently had magical or well-connected powers.) I just had to take a current regulation photo, which I was able to have done next door to the Benidorm police visa office, but you can get them in advance anywhere that does them for visas. After that fingerpriinting, I was told to return on a specific day four weeks later within a four hour time period, no appointment needed, to retrieve my new NIE card, which I did. Both police appointments were quick and efficient. Interestingly, with the 10 year visa, I am now allowed to work (not a chance), and there are other new perks, that didn´t apply to me.

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