Things unseen

When you learn that a city is a little embarrassed by you.

This is the Avenida de los Poblados.  It has no street sign on it.  To the left is the Comisaría.  It has no sign on it saying that it is the Comisaría, and no address number. And no flags visible from the street. They would prefer you to consider it invisible.

I know that I am guilty of sometimes having an overactive imagination.  But I don't think I'm imagining that Madrid is trying to hide the place where foreigners go to receive tarjetas de identidad de extranjero (TIEs) and for that matter where ordinary madrileños go to get passports and similar.  It is technically the Comisaría of the Policía Nacional, but there are no signs saying so, even when you get to the end of the long wall in the picture, and turn left onto the side street, and go past the wall to a more cheerfully whimsical architecture of a guard house with blue glass bricks surmounted by a little cone shaped tower with swirls of red and blue and yellow that look like a child's playground castle, and that lead into a courtyard.  Inside the children's castle architecture there is a metal detector and a pair of bored policía nacionales directing people through it, and paper signs saying which line is for personnel and which for "visitors."  But it doesn't actually say anywhere why anyone might be visiting the place.  They might have just felt there weren't enough metal detectors in their life, and dropped in to buy a soda and make a photocopy at one of the vending machines (and coin operated copiers) in the courtyard.  But I am getting ahead of myself in the story.

Following instructions, I took the metro to Aluche, and headed to what Google maps told me was Avenida de los Poblados 51 (though the Fulbright guide says the Comisaría is "sin número" which appears to be literally true).  Fortunately, I know the Aluche metro station rather well, and so looking at Google maps I was able to instantly orient myself, and headed out on the side of the Carrefour and market, and then turned my back on the Carrefour and walked along the train tracks on a broad highway like street that I assumed correctly had to be the Avenida de los Poblados, although I didn't actually see any street signs saying that it was.

After about five minutes walk in the afternoon sun with the train tracks on one side, and a wildish park across the highway, and no cross streets, buildings, or street signs, I came to the building above, with its blank walls and windows blindfolded by metal grilles.  The blank walls were surmounted by security cameras that were watching me balefully while I took the picture, which is why there aren't more pictures.  I felt like I was being watched.

I walked the length of the building (another five minutes), based on blind faith in Google maps, and also on the fact that on this apparently deserted street there was a steady stream of foot traffic in both directions heading to and from the metro, which suggested that I had to be in the right place.  A street sign finally told me that on the right was the "Sanatorio Esquerdo" and there appeared to be a right turn into what turned from park land into a kind of campus, with tiled roofs just visible above the trees.  At the traffic light by the turn the "Sanatorio Esquerdo" was more helpfully identified as "Psquiatria."  So Madrid literally identifies its equivalent of state mental hospitals more clearly than it does a police station where a significant portion of its legal residents go for totally routine and legitimate business.  In a way, it's nice that mental illness isn't stigmatized.  In a way, WTF Madrid?  Not only do you put the place where all non-resident citizens have to go to get TIEs at the Southern end of the city, far from embassies, and most central areas, but you then do your best to have the building be as unlabeled as possible.  (This is a city where the metro stops regularly point to the exit nearest all sorts of points of interest, and also to which street is where.  The Aluche metro signs point to the Calle Ocaña.  And the other entrance onto the Avenida de los Poblados is the side which is not the Calle Ocaña.  Yup.)

The hidden sheepish Disney castle guardhouse with the metal detector led into a courtyard, which I crossed to a set of double glass doors, with one side labeled "Recogida de tarjetas" and the other "Citas."  A woman was standing in the doorway with an ID around her neck, inspecting people's appointment slips (printed out from the web), and either directing them inside to the line or telling them to wait on a bench under the shade of an umbrella.  I had to wait outside briefly, as the line was up to the doorway and she didn't want to have a crowd.  In a way, it's a nice detail that there are benches in the shade outdoors for the overflow.  In a way, it reminded me of a phrase I'd just run across "si esperas eso, puedes esperar sentado" ("if you're waiting for that, you can wait sitting down" which has the rough connotations of "don't hold your breath.")  One man ruefully said he had been there since the morning, which alarmed me, though it turned out he had arrived late (and possibly pissed off the doorkeeper, who was remonstrating with someone a little ahead of me in the line when I arrived, and saying the she was polite, but that he shouldn't mouth off like that to policías nacionales because they were not).  Another had arrived late with his arm in a sling and cast and explained ruefully that he was late "como el médico ha tardado tanto."  The other person waiting outside was a woman in a hijab, who smiled in a friendly way and said that yes she had been waiting a while, but didn't talk very much, I suspect because her Spanish was limited.  (She had the friendly but slightly panicked smile of someone who is glad to be social, but also worried about being asked to say something beyond her ability.  I have had this smile in other countries, and I sympathize.)  I ended up chatting with the guy with his arm in a sling for a while.  He's a Bolivian, who's lived in Spain for years, and shouldn't have let his TIE expire, but it happens, so now he has to go through the renewal process.  He's considering getting Spanish citizenship, because he'd like to move to Germany (I didn't say that I was considering the reverse), because he speaks German because his girlfriend is Swiss, although German is very difficult, especially Swiss German.  It has the same structure as English, but the gender of nouns, with masculine, feminine and neuter is horrible.  He also asked how I'd learned Spanish, and discussed the challenges thereof, and how the language differed from place to place.  For example in Spain pija means "posh" and in Honduras it means "broke."  (He said he'd innocently said "soy un poco pija" at one point in Spain and had friends look at him oddly until he translated "no tengo dinero.")  You learn something new every day.

The doorkeeper came and asked us our appointments, and told us we could go in after a few minutes (I was a few minutes early, so she actually called for me at around the time of my appointment.  The Bolivian guy went ahead of me, as did a somewhat flustered young Chinese girl who arrived a few minutes after me, with an appointment for 13:45.  She had arrived at about 1:48 and was apologizing profusely for being late, and the doorkeeper took pity on her.)  The Chinese girl (she's a student who's here for a year, and she's studied Spanish for four years, as she explained in accented but enviably fluent Spanish) and the Bolivian guy and I continued our conversation on the line, partly because the Chinese girl asked a little hesitantly if there was still a line even for people who had appointments.  To which I can only say ahahahahahaha.  She was mildly disappointed, and the Bolivian took the opportunity to say how much he liked Switzerland because they are gente muy honrado and do things on time, and son muy avanzados.  The girl also wanted to know if they would call her by name, or how this worked.  I said that I thought we would just move along in the line, and my claim was confirmed along with the pre-emptory yells of "Siguiente!" from the various desks around the center of the room.I was the only one left to defend Spain's casual attitude toward lines as part of the country's charm.  In spite of their griping, the line did in fact move pretty quickly, and I was directed to a desk, where a woman politely asked me what I was there for, and then whether I had brought all my documents.  Properly prepped by the Fulbright people, I had (though I realize that I forgot to make a photocopy of my nice new empadronamiento which I handed over in the order requested, so hopefully I'll get it back - if not, I know it's no problem to go again there).  I stuck my little carnet photo on a barcoded piece of paper which I also signed, which was then duly stapled to my stack of photocopies.  The only hitch came during the electronic fingerprinting process, when I was told that I had "las huellas fatales."  I don't think of myself as working a lot with my hands, but when I was fingerprinted in the US I had the same difficulty with very faint or smudgy prints.  In the US I was given little alcohol wipes to clean my finger tips.  In Spain they are more efficient and eco-friendly, and the woman told me to rub by fingertip against my forehead, presumably to make it slightly greasier so the lines would show up.  (The correct assumption being that in the middle of the day most people will have a light sheen of sweat on their forehead, and that 90% of women at least will be wearing either sunblock or moisturizer or similar which will make their prints nice and clear.)  She eventually gave up on my left index finger and changed it to my left middle finger, which was fine.

Meanwhile, the line had cleared out behind me, as it was just past 2:00, and they were closing for lunch (and possibly for the afternoon, as today is a holiday).  The doorkeeper, having closed the door, circulated in the now empty space, and chatted with the people at the desks about the latest gossip, which did not speed the process, but made it more cheerful.  After I finally got my fingerprints approved the clerk handed me my stack of stapled documents with photo, and I took it to another desk, where I received a justificante which serves as a TIE until I can go back and pick up the actual card, in a minimum of 30 days and a maximum of 45.  (You'd think given that they have my legal address they could mail it, but whatever.)  I said to the doorkeeper "see you in 30 days" when she let me out, and she agreed, with the happy good humor of someone who was about to break for lunch.

It's said that you don't really know a city until you live there, but I think that's an over simplification.  There are worlds and worlds of any city that you can live in for decades and not know unless you run across them.  I didn't know about the little office on Duane Street that provides apostilles of the Hague to official documents until I did my visa process for Spain, and when I was there I discovered a little world of people from all corners of the world, getting all sorts of documents apostilled in preparation for heading out of NY to the winds four corners.  I bet most Madrileños don't know about the world of getting TIEs in the hidden comisaría of Aluche.  They certainly wouldn't know from passing it on the road!  But I'm glad that I got to meet the Bolivian and the Chinese and the other people there, and share a little moment of foreigners who are not tourists, just as I did in New York when I got the apostille (which is incidentally the same office for naturalization and citizenship).  In New York they do have at least have a discreet sign on the door though.