Dutch Embassy in Madrid
The purpose of the recent flight to Madrid was to get my daughter a new passport because her old one expired in November. I totally missed that and found out when my boyfriend was on his business trip a few months later. I was shocked that I missed that but it was right in the period when we had to move homes urgently so I know how it was possible to miss that. Lots of stress and not focused on my notifications at all.
The appointment was not the first day, I considered to do a 1 day passport run for a brief second but voted against it knowing how draining that would be. One night in Madrid and hopefully some memories to be made would be the best choice. When I found reasonable flights in this particular week where I just managed to book an appointment, I knew that I would be flying there soon.
Third party service
In the first place, the whole appointment was not even possible at the Dutch embassy, you may remember my frustrations about this topic as I wrote about it. I ended up using a third party service, knowing that things would be even more costly but I wanted to stop opening and refreshing the embassy's site every day several times and be done with it. I booked the available slot at the third party and then booked the flights right after. I found a reasonably priced hostel at first, which I later changed to another apart hotel which was a lot cheaper and better.
And then when I decided to check just for fun, if there were any open slots on the Dutch embassy's site, I first found two months of appointments but none on the two days that I'd be in Madrid. A day later I joked about it to @whywhy and checked it once more to find an appointment on the second day in Madrid in the morning, which was actually way more convenient. I ended up keeping both appointments, just in case, and cancelled the third party service only a few days before departure. By doing so, I saved some money as well as the re-booking of the accommodation, which felt great.
I had to stand against a wall to capture this one, I was seriously dizzy looking up to this building and afraid I'd fall otherwise..
Check, check, double check
And some more checking of the needed documents. This was the first time that I was flying alone with my child without her father being present. I had no clue about the ins and outs of domestic flights because that too was a first for me. On top of that did I never deal with an expired passport and having to fly with an expired document in a country that's not my country of origin. You could safely say that I went a little overboard with checking, double and triple checking everything as I was scared that I'd end up forgetting something or not having the right permission signed or something and then sent back home. Imagine that, it would fit into our last decade for sure, so I would not even be surprised!
Appointment day
Although I could not get up as early as I hoped that morning, I originally planned eating downstairs in the hotel restaurant, there was no stress the morning of the appointment. In fact, I took my boyfriend's advice and took a taxi to Sol, a big central square in Madrid where I booked a locker in the city for our stuff. I didn't end up using it the first day but as I have a discount code, it was still worth the money and so convenient the day of the appointment.
The taxi ended up being well worth the money because my original plans of taking a taxi to another place and then do the rest by metro was going to end up in us not being in time for sure. It was much busier than anticipated so I'm happy that I paid for the taxi so we could drop our items in the locker. Although it was super sunny, in the shade it was freezing cold (so it felt for us lol) and I was happy that I carried a scarf which I wrapped around my daughter while we weren't walking in the sun so she stayed warm. For myself I only had a vest and would just have to deal with it..
Arriving early
Thanks to our taxi drive, we ended up at the embassy half an hour early, which was fine but it was bloody hot in the sun. We weren't allowed in until 10 minutes before the appointment. Thankfully, I always carry water with me if we have to travel for a bit (even at home) because you never know how long you end up waiting somewhere in the hot sun.
Getting inside the building almost felt like entering an airport because of the security measurements in there. We had to wait for a little longer to be able to get up so while we waited, I took this picture of this HUGE painting which was on both side of the walls.
Up we went
It was really strange as I lived in a flat my whole life and never had any fear going up high floors but this was another level for me. This was three times higher and the weirdest experience. We had to use cards such as you use at the metro stations and swiped it over these security gates, then an elevator would come automatically and also automatically get us to the right floor. The 36th!
We both had to clear our ears while going up, it was a strange experience because it went quite fast to be honest. I would not really enjoy having to work in such a high building every day to be fair. It's a bit too much for me. The view though, that was amazing:
This was taken from the window but there was a hallway in between these windows so I'm happy that even though there ware two layers of windows and a meter of floor in between, the picture turned out quite OK.
The appointment
We had to check the pictures first, that was procedure and I was a bit annoyed when this lady said she may be a bit small in the picture while I took all the instructions, translated to Spanish to the photographer and would now maybe end up getting 2 tiny pictures for 10 euros near the embassy on top of that, if rejected. I stayed hopeful after she mentioned, she's small so maybe it's ok. I was not sent away at least. In the end, it was good that I took two versions of the permissions form because apparently, I didn't print the last page of one of them. I have no clue how this happened as I checked it so many times, thankfully, it was all accepted.
The old passport
I asked to make a hole in the old passport so I could still take it because I didn't want to pay 20 euros afterwards to send it back to the embassy because I also had to pay the costs to send me the new passport. They agreed and in the end I didn't even need to show the passport on the way back (I did while boarding to Madrid). She said it could take 7 weeks or so, which is long but there was a passport peak.
Glad I got it over with because there were a few other Dutch people having issues and even a very old man who drove 500 km by himself to get there and he said "I HATE Madrid, lol". Everyone had issues getting the appointment in the first place and some of them even had to come back several times there, so I consider myself lucky for having it done in one go as our flight back left that evening.
No toilet for visitors
Can you believe it? The receptionist downstairs said there's no toilet for the visitors and you need to ask your embassy if they have a toilet. And when I asked there (I already had to go for 45 minutes quite badly before the appointment) they just flat out told me there's no visitors toilet. This to me sounds ridiculous and they should be ashamed having people pay so much money and travelling through the country to get the passport or ID cards and not even offer a freaking toilet option in the whole building!
My problem got solved as I said my daughter had to go really bad (yes, I took advantage of having a child there, lol) and then my honest daughter said "mama, why did you say that, I can hold it, you are the one needing to go really bad". Luckily they didn't hear me, thanks kid! LOL.
Imagine if that old 80 year old man who drove 500 KM to get there had to wait for an hour and then going to the toilet but flat out refusing it. I'm amazed that this is even allowed. But this was it, I will not return for the next years, luckily.
Pictures
At least I got some cool pictures of the building, as that was quite impressive. Have you ever been in such a high building? Maybe you are surrounded by sky scrapers where you live? I would not want to make a habit out of it to be on such a high floor to be honest. I could not wait to get back home either.. But we had some shopping to to first...
All pictures above are mine...
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The buildings are great, what good angles and views from that window. Also, how well structured your post is. Nice shots @thisismylife have an awesome day!
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Interesting and eye-catching building with some nice design touches. Too bad about the toilets. They should've taken into account that visitors would also want to use such facilities. Whatever happened to user-centric design? :)
It was seriously how this elevator worked, I've been in many elevators in my life but nothing like this one. We scanned the card to get through the security ports and then automatically an elevator was called knowing it had to go to the 36th floor. It was very futuristic, lol.
But really felt it in my ears that we went up that high so fast so would not be pleased to have to visit that building daily..
That's really cool. It seems like an interesting experience, but the pressure in the ears must not be pleasant. It's almost like climbing up a mountain really fast.
I'm used to experiencing it every time we go for a little road trip because you are literally driving through mountains/hills which they cut off and made a road in between. A very strange experience the first time to realise that they are just cutting these down to build something. Not only roads but also apartment blocks..
So there's always a bit of an ear discomfort when it's a steep road but I never experienced it in an elevator myself. I don't remember how high the building was exactly but we were quite at the top so I believe..
I can only imagine it's similar to an airplane. It's an interesting phenomenon to experience in an elevator. :)
Interesting looking architecture/building
Yup , always nonsense process at government offices. Passport or anything else they are frustrating to deal with.
Well, I never experienced such a renewal in Holland as annoying, but I do since living abroad. I mean in Budapest I was very lucky (and I didn't even realise it until later) that we had a 20 min tram ride to our embassy compared to a 5 hour drive or a flight plus accommodation from where we live now.
To me with my back it's really not doable to take a bus and we have a Diesel car which is not allowed in a big part of Madrid, would become very annoying so basically flying was the best option either way. Made it costly yes, but my daughter keeps saying how much she enjoyed it and loved our trip. I guess that makes up for it big time lol.
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