Interview

We had our interview with the Civil Registry in Pablo's town of Mieres. It was an interview to make sure we were a real couple and not just getting married so I could stay in the country. Now if they asked any interesting questions like why the heck would I want to leave America and live in Spain? They would have found out I wasn't moving here for all the job opportunities, the lazy spanish mentality, total disregard for most laws and speaking spanish until I can't even speak english because my head is so confused. They would have seen that we are two crazy people who over the last 8 years, for some reason, kept flying to the other side of the world to see each other, spent hours on the internet, waking up at 5am to catch each other on messenger and spending 20 dollars a week to buy stupid phone cards! Now if this doesn't say real couple I don't know what does.

But they didn't ask any real interesting, dramatic questions, this is how it really went.

Our appointment was at 1:15 (after they closed, yes that is right, they only work from 9am-1pm). I think I was more nervous that they were interviewing me, alone, in spanish than answering the questions so we stopped for a quick class of wine to calm my nerves. We arrived at the office and I was the first one to go in. Mieres is a small town and lucky me because I can't imagine how it would have gone in Madrid. The lady who gave the interview was the same person who took all our paperwork and she was really nice and spoke slowly. So it was easy to understand her and once we started I did pretty good answering back in Spanish.

Here were the questions:

1) My name, where I was born, parents names

2) Pablo's name, where he was born, parents names

3) Do we have kids, any kids from previous relationships

4) How and where we met

5) When we became a couple

6) Every time we have gone to visit each other- Year, Month and for how many days

7) Hobbies, mine and his

8) Favorite foods, mine and his

9) Last gift I bought for him and last gift I received from him

10) any big medical conditions

Pablo went in after me and was asked the same questions. We didn't give exactly the same answers but close enough. Remembering all those dates gets confusing at 8 years.

Now we wait, hopefully no more than a month, for it to be processed and approved. Once that is complete we are free to marry!

Date, Restaurant, Interview

We have finally decided on a wedding date, restaurant for the reception and have a date for our interview!! It was a long week last week trying to figure everything out but today things are finally falling into place.

Wedding date for Spain- May 22, 2010

Wedding Ceremony- City Hall of Mieres, 6pm

Reception- Latores Restaurante (close to Oviedo)

Inteview with Imigration- Wednesday, October 21st, 1:15pm

If you want to join us let me know! More the merrier!

Finding a restaurant that had openings in May and followed my strict list of necessities was hard to find. I think we both made a good comprise and if it doesn't rain it will be perfect!

I will explain a little of how it goes here in spain in terms of weddings. We are having a civil ceremony at the city hall in Mieres. Mieres is Pablo's hometown. Wedding ceremonies in Spain are usually either around 1pm or 6pm. If your wedding is at 1pm the reception is different than a night wedding. We are doing ours at night so here is how it goes. Guests meet at city hall at 6pm. We marry in the conference room of the city hall and apparently the wedding is 5 minutes long. I think we are only going to have family and real close friends join us because the room has a huge conference table in the middle and isn't really cute. But the building is cute and free so I'm going with it. After the ceremony we join our guest in the plaza of the city hall and there will be a bus to take all guests to the reception. There, guests will start the cocktail hour while we take pictures. There will be tons of appetizers, wine, sidra ect. After around 2 hours we will go inside to the dinning room for dinner around 9pm. There the menu- yet to be decided by us will start and probably last 3-4 hours! So much food is expected and delivered. If you don't provide a nice and huge meal people complain. No worries we will have a ton. Dinner will probably be 4 courses with dessert, coffee, liquors and then dancing will begin. When dancing starts so does the open bar so you can have your vodka tonics, rum and coke whatever. Our wedding will last until 4am and a bus will take guests back to Mieres.

That is the plan as of now and all depends really if we pass our Immigration interview! I'm not too worried about the interview but because I have no idea how it will be I am a little nervous. After our interview we have to have 3 witnesses go and talk with the people as well. 1 family- Pablo's mom and two friends. After all of that is complete they send our marriage request to Oviedo for processing and we should be set to go in 1 month!

Here are a few photos of where we are getting married and the reception!

City Hall in Mieres where we will be married

Stairs leading up to the hall where we'll marry

Wine to celebrate after we turned in our wedding papers

Reception site

Outside gardens

very spanish

This where cocktail hour is (if no rain!)

Riding bikes

We brought our bikes to Asturias so we could put them to good use. Here are some pictures from our 25 mile bike ride.

Pablo first brought me here in 2003 when we visited him on our Europe trip. I left Jill and Kristin for an afternoon and spent it with Pablo. This was one of his favorite places to go when he was a kid.

There was a dog just like this in 2003. We asked if it was the same but this is his son. The original dog died 4 years ago at the age of 14.

Sheep!

Goats

Stop to pet the horses

A wedding.... Spanish Style

Outside church

I survived my first spanish wedding! One of the reasons for coming back early to Spain was to go to Pablo's friend's wedding so I could see one before we got married. Good thing I went because they do it a tad different here in Asturias. The big picture is the same but different in the way you plan and present.

First, ceremony was in a church in Santa Cruz where Pablo lived as a child. It was in the same church his parents were married and Pablo and his sister were baptized so it was fun to go see it. We waited outside the church and everyone was talking and then the groom showed up and greeted people. Then the bride showed up and we are like or time to go in the church but only half the people went in before the bride. The rest followed her in. Pablo said that isn't normal. The priest wasn't even at the alter when the bride walked down the asile but he finally showed up. We think he was drunk or something because he couldn't find passages in his book and ad-libed and then he didn't even know the names of the bride and groom. It was bizare. And then half the guests kept talking during the whole thing and to top it off....they didn't even kiss!

After the very interesting mass/ceremony we got on buses and headed to the reception. It was in this very nice place. We were greeted with appetizers, very fancy, and wine and sidra for cocktail hour. It was outside/inside setup and they had bagpipe players, typical asturian playing music.

Traditional Asturian Bagpipe players

Appetizers

Cocktail hour

We arrived to the reception around 7:30 and at 9:30 they opened the doors to the dinning room and we found our table and dinner began. I was warned NUMEROUS times not to eat or drink a lot during cocktail hour because I would be eating a lot for dinner. I quickly found out that it was not a joke. At each place setting was a menu for dinner. It was 5 courses plus a sorbet in between the fish and meat course, coffee or tea, champagne, and liquors. The menu included seafood platter, fish soup, white fish, orange sorbet, lamb, two desserts- cake and ice cream. I ate almost all of it but it was a little ridiculous the amount of food. Basically you got 3 main courses plus soup, sorbets and desserts. But EVERYONE comes for the food. I quickly found out as I am now in search for a reception site that if you don't serve a lot of food and bad quality food everyone will complain and not be happy. It is a lot of pressure! And it doesn't really fit into my original ideas of a small, fun, low-key wedding.

First Course...Seafood platter

Third Course Fish (second course was a fish soup, 4th was lamb)

All the girls received these gifts boys received cigars and whiskey

5th Course- cake and ice cream

After a 4 hour dinner and barely being able to move out of my chair because I ate so much, the dancing started. Very typical...DJ and drunk people dancing. At weddings I tend to always turn into a crazy person and tend to feel embarrassed the next day...this was no different. I was dedicated a song and they played Grease and I sang to it in the microphone...I didn't know the words but that is the song they play for Americans...not my first choice. All the songs were in Spanish so at the end I just wanted one song in english and got 3 by the end of the night. Grease, I will survive and Let's Dance by Lady Gaga. But I can't complain it was fun.

We finally ended the night around 5:30 am and got on the bus and headed for home.

The Bride Marta

The Groom Fredo

Made it!

Hello from Madrid! I made it safe and sound after a horribly long day of traveling. My flight left for Toronto at 8 am so that meant up at 4 am, at airport by 6. I brought my bike with me and was pretty stressed about checking it but luckily it was less money than I thought it would be and went pretty smoothly.

The flight to Toronto was 4 hours and luckily I survived all the turbulence and landed in Toronto at 3:30pm. I didn't really pay attention to my itinerary before but when I arrived I realized I had a 6 and half hour layover! Those international airlines always give times in military time so it is hard to figure it out quickly when just looking at your itinerary. So I settled in, ate lunch, found some free internet so I got to chat with Pablo and mom for awhile, tried to work on english homework, walked around, watched tv and finally boarded my plane to Madrid at 9:30 pm for the 7 hour flight. I was so tired at this point and was lucky to sleep about a half hour one time and 45 minutes another.

I arrived in Madrid at 11:30 am and now it was reality time. Officially, I am arriving to Spain illegally. I am only allowed to be here 90 days out of every 6 months. That is why I am always going back and forth for 3 months. The last time I was here was for 89 days so technically I can be here 1 day so I knew I had a good chance of getting in if they paid attention. The thing about customs in Spain is they don't care! Never once do they scan a passport, look you up in a computer- Nothing. You fill out a piece of paper that gives your information and I guess they put that in the computer later. But the last time I was here I arrived from England and when you arrived from an EU country they have no boarders so you don't need to fill out any paperwork. So really the government had no record I was in the country the last time. So coming this time the only way to get 'caught' was to have the customs people look at my arrival and departure stamps and do the math. So I pick my line for customs and notice that it is the slowest line of course and my custom agent seems to be taking a really long time with each person. All the other customs dudes look at passports and stamp. There are no questions no nothing. So what is my guy doing? He is looking at his computer, people are talking to him. I start to get nervous and I am waiting forever. The line next to me is going so fast. I spot Pablo on the other side so I know he is there to help if there is a problem. He showed his badge to get in to the baggage claim area. Finally I get up to the guy. I know the first thing they do is look at my picture. So I make really good eye contact when he looks up to verify it is me. And then....STAMP! No questions, no looking at computer, no nothing. 10 seconds! I like to think it is because I am so cute but it is a little weird he spent forever on the 10 people before me and I was out in 10 seconds!

Lucky me I enter, Pablo is there waiting and my bike is already on the baggage carousel! Yes! Bike made it. I was so stressed out about the dumb bike. We waited awhile for my suitcase and then headed to the car. Slight issue fitting the bike box in the small car but Pablo figured it out and I made it home!

Like always it is so weird to be here because it feels like I was just here and then to think just yesterday I was in Seattle. Once I finally arrive here or Seattle I always think- that was so easy to travel across the world! :) I seem to forget all the hours in between. Maybe it is like giving birth!

We got home around 1pm, I showered and Pablo cooked lunch. I couldn't even make it through lunch and had to go take a nap. I slept for about 2 hours and felt much better. Pablo put together my bike and then we went for nice bike ride around the neighborhood. Then we stopped at our corner bar for some beer and tapas. Just like that I'm back in my Spanish world!