I think I've been here before!
Remember a while ago when I complained about the idiot appointment system of the Spanish traffic agency? The online system never works! I even asked 
Eventually, after days and days of trying and hoping for the best, we took the car to drive to the city and spent a few hours in total to make the appointment in person. Now, there's a reason that we don't live in a big city anymore, we hate every bit of it, starting with the parking issues, lol.
The "funny" thing was that once you arrive at the office, there's a "consultant" outside helping every single person coming there to book their appointments and even trying to get them to a certain clinic for the medical report you also need, and then there's a totally different!!! link to an appointment system which we checked on the spot, and worked (at the time at least).
It's infuriating to me that this happens because clearly it feels like corruption. A little while later, my boyfriend sent me a screenshot of an article where they mentioned putting a halt to these scamming practices. I don't think it was about this office but maybe immigration, I'm not sure. Reading that, I knew my gut feeling was right that this is all done so that a few other people "consultants" can just earn from those they register and send to the medical offices for these documents. There prices aren't set in stone so I can only guess that the one near the office is more expensive than me arranging it in our little town.
Here we go again..
After reading a few things recently, I discovered that my boyfriend also needs to swap his license. I wish I realized it back then because that would have been ideal, one time hassle, one trip and done. Sadly, this is not the case. I thought, don't worry because I have the right link in my bookmarks so at least I can arrange it smoothly this time. WRONG! It still goes in circles and it drives me nuts.
There's another way to try with a digital certificate which he has, but it doesn't work either, lol. My gosh, is there anything that works smoothly if it comes to online services here.. I decided to save myself the headache and propose a trip to the city in the next weeks to make the appointment in person and handle it from there. Much easier for the mind!
Expired passport?
Now this is the big bang in terms of stressful moments, I tell you! First, I discovered that our daughter's passport expired a few months ago while my boyfriend was on a business trip. I don't understand how this is possible because I set tons of alarms for this, but that's probably the issue when you use these for everything. In stressful times (read the months before and after the move) I overlooked it totally. Ouch.
My first worry was how to freaking get to Madrid without a valid passport. It didn't take me long to find out that with a valid residence permit (which we have) she can fly within the country without issues. It's best to have some supportive documentation with you, which is no problem, great! Now let's get an appointment and plan this trip.
Easier said than done
Oh boy, here we go again! I will spare you the details because it almost sounds unbelievable if I do but believe me when I say that I've been trying to get into the system for two days (with intervals of 30 minutes or so to make sure I checked it every hour I was awake) and until today, I could not even get to the point where I filled in the name to check if there were free slots.
So today there was progress, and I could fill in the data and then find no slots, until 20 attempts later when February the 12th popped up, yay! It's very soon but let's book it and try to see if I can manage to make it happen, better get it over with.
It's not doable
This close to the date, it's not doable, especially because I don't want to pay a few hundred euros per person on top of the passport costs and accommodation plus food, where I used to find 20 euro a night stays years ago, it seems to start at 80 euros bare minimum nowadays.
I considered bus or train, both take 6 hours (weirdly enough lol) but it's just not a good idea for me to have to sit 6 hours straight with my blood pressure issue, I've noticed many times that when I even sit for 30 minutes too long, things start to hurt and it's not a great feeling when your blood vessels seem to act up because you have to get the blood flowing. As long as I keep moving, I'm good and I would like to keep it that way.
Cancelling or changing the appointment
When I considered all options and decided this was too short notice to not let it be a very stressful event, I wanted to change the appointment, which was clearly not going to work out with just 1 pop up appointment, but either way, both links from the confirmation email were not working, can you believe it? Neither can I!
How can a government department work with such a shitty system, I really can't make anything other from it than that it's corruption to help a few consultants get rich through a third party option. Because yes, there's a third party option costing 16 euros more per passport, which is ok by me, that is if the registration would work. Several attempts on several connections as well as different email addresses and it just doesn't work and I can't even get into the system, what a joke!
Funny thing is the link seems so similar to the embassy's link that I suspect it's all one big company in the back-end, lol. But either way, it's shit.
Back to square one
I called the embassy for getting into all these attempts btw, hoping they'd book me an appointment by phone, which they didn't. So I already knew that even if I contact them to cancel this appointment, they will refer me to the system again as their advice earlier today was "just keep trying". Sometimes slots open for months filled with appointment options, and sometimes there's nothing for weeks. What a joy.
Eventually, after numerous attempts, I managed to get through to cancel it, with the exact same data as was refused earlier, lol. You can't make this up!
Monday there's another day
Which I will limit myself to spending one hour in total tops to try and book something because I've been dealing with headaches for days now going back and forward comparing the best option for us budget wise and time wise and it's not an easy task with prices of flights fluctuating so much. I hope I can manage to get an appointment from next month or maybe April so that I have some time to plan the rest.
As I wasted so much time on this already, I'm now going to prep dinner and relax a bit first because gosh, these things stress me out as I just want to plan it, book it and get it over with. This is not happening when dealing with these shitty systems. But what can I do but deal with it? Nothing, so it's time to get from behind the screen and let it go. Thank god, I only have to deal with this once every four years!
Now that I managed to get this all off my chest, I'm already feeling relieve lol, that leaves me with wishing you a great weekend ahead!
The header image is my own.
The funny kid pictures is from Canva Pro