‘A great way of seeing a new city is to become embroiled in its bureaucracy’

Let’s imagine, for example, you are in Spain, trying to get your European Union citizen card. You could spend hours on your bike criss-crossing Madrid in the sun and the rain, taking in police stations, print shops and translation offices, discovering far-flung neighbourhoods that you would never otherwise have had the pleasure of knowing.

You might find that, by the fourth appointment for the same card, you know the route to the police station off by heart – what a win!

Along that selfsame route, you could find yourself thinking that it’s quite apt that the journey is all uphill, and wondering what the Spanish for Sisyphus is (Sísifo, by the way).

I use the example of being in Spain trying to get an EU citizen card because I am, in fact, in Spain, trying to get my EU citizen card.

‘A haon, a dó, a trois’: How a tiny French village fell in love with Irish dancing

‘Last time I tried to park a car in Dublin, I couldn’t get over it’

Irishwoman in El Salvador: I’m 60 and moved halfway around the world. Everything is different

I’ve learned that it’s not enough to be a citizen of the EU, existing in Spain. I need to prove that with documents – and lots of them. (There is a joke to be made here about Elon Musk’s new department of government efficiency, but I don’t like him so I won’t make it.)

You’d think a degree in European studies would have prepared me for this.

We studied the works of Dante, Weber and Kafka, which provide the theoretical foundations for hellish bureaucracy. Somehow the theory feels hollow when you’re crying outside the police station with no tarjeta in your hand, but then, feeling hollow is probably what Dante, Weber and Kafka were getting at.

My chosen career path should have helped too.

I work in climate change, so preparing irrefutable evidence of the facts, expecting swift action and being constantly disappointed is my bread and butter. I can’t help myself feeling a glimmer of hope each time the policía rifles through the documents, but, like any good UN climate conference, the outcome is suboptimal.

Meanwhile, when I’ve arrived for my multiple appointments, I’ve been given a little square of paper with a number on it. It’s your ticket and your number is called when it’s your turn. But the ticket doesn’t come from a machine. It has been hand-cut with a scissors, meaning that each morning, it is someone else’s job to cut up these little squares of paper and ready them for the day ahead

The experience has got me thinking about a lot of things.

Seeing the post-Brexit hoops that friends from the UK have to jump through to get their visa makes me very grateful to be part of the EU, to have a fast(er) track to residency.

I also recognise the immense privilege it is to simply pitch up and start working in Spain, especially compared with friends arriving from places such as Syria and Venezuela.

It also raises questions about different kinds of work.

I am setting up as a freelance (I would love to avoid, but can’t really deny, the term “digital nomad” which has become a dirty term here, linked to gentrification and rising rents). Effectively, this means I will tap away at my laptop for eight hours a day, sending emails and shuffling information from Word documents to Excel spreadsheets.

Meanwhile, when I’ve arrived for my multiple appointments, I’ve been given a little square of paper with a number on it. It’s your ticket and your number is called when it’s your turn. But the ticket doesn’t come from a machine. It has been hand-cut with a scissors, meaning that each morning, it is someone else’s job to cut up these little squares of paper and ready them for the day ahead.

I think about David Graeber’s book Bullshit Jobs and feel a profound sense of connection with the ticket-cutter.

My friend tells me that the Spanish bureaucratic system is designed to catch you out. In my small experience, it is certainly a colossal waste of time for applicants and police officers, who presumably didn’t dream of this during their years of training.

But perhaps the time wasted is a challenge to our modern obsession with efficiency. After all, what difference does a few lost hours here and there really make?

And, in a world where we are constantly in our heads, receiving and processing a barrage of information every day, we must take every chance to reconnect with our bodies.

You know, really feel the rage coursing through your veins, the tears flowing from your eyes, the breath quickening.

The fifth appointment looms – wish me luck!

Orlaith Delargy is from Dublin and moved to Madrid in 2024. She is an independent consultant, specialising in nature, biodiversity and sustainability. She studied European Studies in Trinity College Dublin. You can find her on Substack and LinkedIn.
If you live overseas and would like to share your experience with Irish Times Abroad, email abroad@irishtimes.com with a little information about you and what you do.
Sign up to The Irish Times Abroad newsletter for Irish-connected people around the world. Here you’ll find readers’ stories of their lives overseas, plus news, business, sports, opinion, culture and lifestyle journalism relevant to Irish people around the world.