A regretful update, 4/9/2021: rec.redara.es seems to have firmly closed this door for submission of visa docs, if it was ever open to expats in the first place. Citizens and companies only. Sorry. As for the information on getting a digital certificate: I believe and hope that it still holds true. My cert still works…
All posts by Tim Adams
Spain Taxes for U.S. Expats
2024 Update: Please see a more recent post on the Spain-USA tax treaty. Must we? Didn’t we Yankees endow earthly civilization with the Big Mac, Love Boat re-runs, the Chia Pet? Isn’t it enough that we grace Spanish soil with our Stetson-crowned, Buckaroo-booted presence? Must we submit to the indignity of expat taxation, too? I’m…
Love Letter: Madrid’s Pedestrian Streets
Madrid’s heart — her epicenter, undisputed city nucleus — is the plaza at Puerta del Sol. Couriers once traveled Europe to deliver the world’s news here at the Casa de Correos. A sidewalk plaque marks the plaza as the nation’s kilometer zero. City addresses begin here, as do measurements for Spain’s grid of radial roads.…
Ximena of Barquisimeto, Venezuela
Lucky ol’ me meets many people in Madrid: moved-to-the-big-city Spaniards from Extremadura, Andalucia, Asturias; EU-wandering Erasmus students; watchful-eye-on-Brexit Brits; young Auxiliares de Conversación, often from the States; expats for hauls long and short, from Australia, China, Bulgaria, hither, yon, beyond. They talk to me. (The fools!) Some chats are guarded, surface-y. Others far less so.…
A Bigger Picture
5,300 years ago, this doomed man ate a last meal on the mountain glaciers of today’s Northern Italy. He may have struggled to grasp food. He was right-handed, ate despite a fresh, deep gash that reached to the bone of that hand, perhaps sustained in a brawl in the valley. He might have climbed the…
Madrid Impressions: Round Six
Two years in Spain! I roam Madrid in my geezerly way, drift obliviously into the photo frames of selfie-snapping newlyweds, scour farmacia shelves for good ol’ American Geritol. Locals chat with me, especially when I suffer senior moments in big metro stations. I notice stuff, despite dotage, post these occasional comminiqués. HEALTH CARE ¡Muy bien…
Modding my Android Smartphone
A quick update, 7/8/2021: I I switched to GrapheneOS a couple of months ago, only swap the SIM card into an older, LineageOS-powered smartphone when I need to use Google services. Vodafone knows where I am. My cellular service provider knows now, yesterday, tomorrow, whenever or wherever my smartphone-with-a-Vodafone-SIM is turned on, unless I swaddle…
Transit vs Car: Four More Points
Yet another post! Despite an implied battening-down-of-hatches in 2015. I’m sorry. I still lived stateside in 2015. My perspective has changed. For now, four more bright red subheads: LOS ANGELES AND SAN FRANCISCO TRANSIT VS MADRID TRANSIT: NO COMPARISON My ’14/’15 tourist treks showed me the chasm between transit West Coast and transit West Europe.…
openSUSE Tumbleweed: a Linux Distro review
I chronicled my Windows-to-Linux transition in early 2016, posted a mid-2017 update, today describe adoption of a new-to-me Linux variant. Two warnings! This post is: (♦) Inexcusably geeky. Inexcusably! I had something to say in 2016 and 2017, today only wallow shamelessly in a long-dormant computer nerd’s streak rekindled by the switch from Windows. Other…
Mugged in Guatemala City
Before I saw the mugger’s knife, I noticed his shirt: a roll-your-own-logo tee, the kind you’d order online as a gift with a relative’s favorite hokey catchphrase. Official Olympic Beer Drinking Team. Duct Tape Ph.D. I’m With Stupid. That kind of shirt. An English catchphrase on the shirt, even though he mugged me in Guatemala…