Ir al banco es una mierda

Me da pena que algunos bancos españoles puedan ser súper ineficientes. Me refiero a la calidad de servicio que suele ser bastante mala incluso en aquellos bancos importantes cuya experiencia en esa industria, se supone, es de muchos años. Algunas operaciones que al principio parecen muy sencillas, y como tales, deberían ser fáciles de realizar, a veces te pueden resultar mucho más complicadas de lo que esperabas.

A lo largo de este año he tenido bastantes problemas. De hecho, a mi me da miedo cada vez que viene un correo del banco porque esto me puede significar solamente dos cosas: primero, que me están mandando información de movimientos en mi cuenta, cosa que es habitual y rutinaria, por eso no hay que preocuparse nada, y segundo, que hay algún problema en mi cuenta así que tendré que ir al banco lo antes posible. Desgraciadamente, es el segundo caso muchas veces.

Para empezar, soy cliente de más de un banco. Y con cada uno de ellos (¡¡ufffffff!!) he tenido mala experiencia.

Cuento Inolvidable #1: Banco Santander

Para poder abrir una cuenta en España, necesitarás documentación. Ésta puede ser tu pasaporte, tu DNI, o en el caso de extranjeros, su NIE o tarjeta de residencia. Cuando llegué aquí a Málaga, todavía no tenía mi tarjeta porque aún estaba en tramitación, por eso abrí una cuenta de no residente con mi pasaporte. Al abrir esa cuenta, tuve que firmar una solicitud, la chica del banco me dijo que con esa solicitud el banco pediría a la comisaría de policía un certificado que no era residente de España. En realidad lo que dijo me parecía un poco raro puesto que tenía un visado de residente y ese tiempo mi NIE ya estaba en tramitación. Se lo expliqué todo a ella, pero me aseguró que las cosas se tenían que hacer así, que era algo administrativo y rutinario, y que todo estaría bien. Pues, transcurrieron algunas semanas hasta que un día (¡vaya!) mi cuenta se encontró bloqueada. Súper molesto, fui inmediatamente al banco y esa chica me dijo que la comisaría no había expedido el certificado (ya que mi NIE ya estaba en tramitación, como le había explicado yo) así que el banco tenia que bloquear mi cuenta hasta que estuvo listo mi NIE. A ver, ¿de quien era la culpa?

Cuento Inolvidable #2: BBVA

Como abrir una cuenta me había resultado tan complicado, pensé que cerrar una iba a ser fácil. Pero me equivoqué. Tras haber esperado durante meses, la comisaría me expidió la tarjeta de residencia y fui directamente al banco para cambiar de cuenta. Tuve que cerrar mi cuenta antigua que había abierto con el pasaporte, y abrir la nueva con mi NIE. El chico del banco me dijo que tenia que hacerlo así, dado que el sistema informático del banco no aceptaba cambios en cuanto a la documentación. Pues, me parecía bien y fácil de hacer. Firmé algunos documentos para cerrar la cuenta, me rompió la libreta antigua, y solicité también una tarjeta para la nueva cuenta. Ya está. Ese día salí del banco súper contento. El mes siguiente me llegó un correo del banco llamándome la atención al saldo NEGATIVO de mi cuenta antigua. ¿Como podía ser? ¡Si era una cuenta muerta! Cuando llegué al banco, súper enfadado, descubrí que ese chico había cometido algún error así que no se había cerrado la cuenta. Cerrar la cuenta de un cliente debe ser una tarea facilísima ¿verdad?

Cuento Inolvidable #3: Unicaja

En España, además de los bancos, hay cajas de ahorro. Se supone que su servicio es mucho mejor y suele ser que esas entidades contribuyen al bien de la sociedad a través de programas de educación, cultura y cooperación para el desarrollo. Si pides un préstamo por tu negocio, tal vez puedas aprovechar tasas de interés mucho más bajas en una caja de ahorro. Se dice que están más dirigidas al servicio de la gente. El año pasado la UMA, donde estudio, llevó a cabo un proyecto con Unicaja, se trata de hacerles a los alumnos de la universidad una tarjeta con una serie de usos: carné de estudiante, tarjeta bancaria y tarjeta de autobús. Como en ese tiempo mi carné de estudiante aún no me había llegado, me atreví a solicitar esa tarjeta inmediatamente. Hice la solicitud en la universidad, creyendo que la tarjeta no tardaría mucho tiempo en llegar. Eso fue en noviembre, ahora ya estamos en julio ¡y todavía no ha venido la tarjeta! Cuando fui a la universidad hacia febrero para quejarme, me dijeron que no sabían nada de ello y tenia que informarme en Unicaja. En Unicaja, me dijeron que tenia que preguntar en la universidad, o llamar al número de Atención al Cliente, cosa que era tan aburrida y repugnante que al final decidí dejarlo.

Lo bueno de los bancos españoles es que no tienes que pagar ninguna comisión cuando retiras dinero del cajero automático por la noche y por la madrugada, a condición de que saques dinero de la red a la que pertenece tu tarjeta. En Japón recuerdo que tenia que pagar una comisión pequeña a partir de las 21.00 horas, y cerraban los cajeros automáticos a las 24.00 horas. También los bancos españoles abren los sábados, cosa que no se hace en Filipinas. Si eres turista, puedes abrir una cuenta solamente con el pasaporte, así que es fácil recibir transferencias del extranjero. En los supermercados y los centros comerciales, se encuentran pequeños kioscos de los bancos donde puedes abrir una cuenta o hacer otras transacciones sencillas. Estos kioscos abren incluso por la tarde, cuando los bancos ya están cerrados.

A pesar de esto, por lo general, me caen mal los bancos de aquí. Su personal normalmente no sabe qué hacer, dependen mucho de la red informática donde hay los datos de todos los clientes. Lo que pasa es que a veces esa red es difícil de manejar, así que el personal da información incorrecta a los clientes. Aun más, en algunos casos, la información en esa red no basta, así que el personal es incapaz de solucionar el problema del cliente. Cuando ocurre esto, te quedan dos opciones: puedes esperar un poco (ya que la eficiencia del personal a menudo depende del momento) y pedir a dios un milagro; o mejor, puedes tirar tu cuenta a la basura y cambiar de banco.

Term-end

I'm done! I emailed the last requirement for the term to my professor yesterday midnight, with a concise message: Hi, I'm sending you the class exercise. Have a nice vacation!

But I really didn't believe he would have a nice vacation, considering it was now his turn to check our work. Haha!

Anyway, I like those few moments that follow shortly after you click "send." Never do I feel a greater sense of accomplishment than during these moments. It gives a closure to all the hard work, pressure, the sleepless nights and all the sacrifices that had to be made just to be able to finish. Every time I click that button on my email, I imagine all my hard work traveling into cyberspace away from me, then I heave a sigh of relief. But yesterday was cathartic. I was half-screaming, half-giggling in front of my laptop as I viewed the message on the screen: Your message has been sent. It actually felt like flushing the toilet. It meant I could finally go out to enjoy the sun, and the breezy summer weather. It meant that the second term was finished.

It also meant that my first year in the masters program was officially over. Judging by the number of times I had gone back to smoking over the last ten months, it wasn't such an easy year. I mean, academically. The first months had been especially trying, given the language barrier. We were a small class of ten people, and as the only foreigner in this group whose native tongue wasn't Spanish, I was always on my guard not to look stupid. There were four other non-Spanish guys in class but these were Venezuelans and a Bolivian; the fourth one, an Italian, has been living in Malaga for some 15 years now. So every time I talked in class I was kind of pressured, and I thought hard to make sure I was making sense. Looking back, I see it made me realize how helpful my classmates and professors could be.

So what's in store for me next school year? I don't know exactly, but I've got some plans. In the meantime, I will look forward to my backpacking tour next month, recharge, enjoy the sun, and take my own sweet time.

Ana and Nick

It's just amazing how family ties could be broken so suddenly. One day, whole families of your relatives pack up and migrate to far-away countries. Cousins graduate from college, look for a job abroad, and the next thing you know, you only get to see them in once-in-a-bluemoon family reunions. I'm not trying to sound too melodramatic about it, rather I'm stating it matter-of-factly. Because really, that's the way it happens. I've experienced it plenty of times, not only with family, but also with dear friends who have chosen to stick it out in foreign shores. Over time, the best scenario would be you finding Christmas cards at your doorstep, getting long-distance phone calls on your birthday, or opening an email from unknown origins that sometimes you would even mistake it for spam. There is, however, an exciting part to it. When, how and where you will see them again is always uncertain, that when the next encounter finally comes, it could be full of surprises. And it's just amazing when you realize that such ties have not been broken a bit. Rather, they have simply taken a new form.

Ana, my cousin, and her English husband Nick came to visit me in Malaga last week. It was a reunion after years of not seeing each other. In fact, I can't remember exactly the last time I'd seen her. For sure I was in her wedding in Manila about 10 years ago. Maybe I saw her again after the wedding, on the few occasions that she would come home for a short vacation, but I'm pretty sure our succeeding encounters had been rather brief. She left the Philippines in 1992, worked in Hong Kong for several years, then the next thing I heard was that she would tie the knot with Nick. I was quite young then that I didn't realize she was going to the UK for good, or at least I didn't realize what that meant.

When I went to pick them up at the airport last week, she was so surprised I had grown so big! She had to literally look up to me to see how my features had changed, and I had to bend down a mile to give her a squeeze. The Ana that I saw was not greatly different from the one I had known. Sure, she seemed to have put a couple of pounds more. Sure, she was a bit tanned, and looked a bit more mature. But really, she still retained this bubbly attitude and that positive aura she would always generously exude to everybody around her.

During their short stay, we managed to go out together often enough. We went to Calle Larios to dine a couple of times. During the day, they set out on their own to visit the museums and the Alcazaba, and they rented a car to drive in the suburbs and go to Granada to see the Alhambra. On their last night, I brought them to my flat and cooked dinner, which unfortunately, turned out a disaster. All this time, we were reminiscing a lot about our days in Manila, that at some point Nick looked sleepy because of all the family talk. Already, many years had passed, so sometimes we would disagree over names, places, dates and how events had indeed taken place. But all the same it felt good to remember: events like the Baguio outing with Marie and Dan, and our days in Sta. Ana and Paco when our families used to live in one house, and symbols like the duhat tree in Ampy's house, Ate Soly's cat, and their helper Rose. For sure, years later from now, we will talk about their visit to Malaga, and look back at what a great time we had.

On their last day, Ana and Nick came to the flat again in the morning to drop off a guidebook they had borrowed. When it was time to say goodbye, I was quite unsure how to call my cousin - Ate Ana, or simply Ana - as I felt slightly embarrassed. I was already too dambuhala to call her such. But then she said she was still my big sister, all 4-or-so feet of her, and that if ever I needed help, I should not hesitate to call her. I gave her a beso and a huge squeeze. They were flying back to Winchester that day, miles away from Malaga, but I wasn't worried a bit. I was fully aware that circumstances change, but some ties are hard to break. She is still my big sister, and I am still Ton-ton to her.

Arriving in Malaga

Whenever I go to live in a foreign country, usually it is the first days that pass unnoticed. The first moments in the neighborhood, the first visits to the local store, the first trips out into the city prove hard to remember. The first people I say "hola" or "konnichiwa" to are the ones that I will most probably not run into again during the rest of my stay. Time goes, like a bored guest would slip out of a party, and before I know it, the first whole month is over. But where has it gone?

I try to recall my first week at ICU - five years ago - and I wonder how it went. Not that everything is beyond retrieval; in fact, some moments do stand out, like arriving in campus from the airport at midnight, sleeping in a room without bedsheets and electric fan, and bugging the cleaning lady for some hot water to steam up my cup ramen the next morning. But those days are now significantly fuzzy, and laying out the chain of events is like piecing together a grand puzzle. Every time I do a mental rewind, I see things pass like a flash of light.

But my first night in Malaga was different, and it would be quite difficult to forget. After 18 hours on the plane, flying a Manila-Bangkok-Frankfurt-Malaga killer route, I arrived in my new flat at about 8 in the evening. Before that, I had a nerve-racking week in Manila and spent six hours wandering inside the Frankfurt airport to wait for my connecting flight. So my body was craving sleep, which proved elusive since I didn't have the heart to decline my flatmate Sergio's offer to bring me to a botellon on my first night in Spain. We all set out to Plaza de la Merced, that part of the city center where the locals normally gather for a botellon, the typical Spanish street party. Young people usually flock together, often in an open space like a plaza, with their own glasses, bags of ice, cola and rum to chat and drink the night away. The party starts at about 12 midnight and lasts until the wee hours of the morning. That night, I was actually drained, my mind half-asleep, but it was constantly aware of the new sensations around it: the sound of Spanish spoken everywhere, the sea of western faces, the ground wet with melted ice and spilled rum, and the amazing architecture surrounding the plaza that I only used to see in Intramuros.

My first night, October 7, was an initiation of sorts to the Spanish culture of fun, partying and taking it easy, thanks to my flatmate Sergio, Veronica, Ismael and his other friends in the picture whose names I now struggle to recall. I also got initiated into the European culture of beso. That day I kissed - on the cheeks - the most number of women in one night in my entire life. Pity I couldn't kiss the men...

El Puente Romano

So here goes. I finally muster the courage to blog. From this point on, I have an online diary. I now have my space on the Net. The idea has been floating in my head for the past couple of weeks, and it's funny how I end up creating this account now that I haven't exactly time in my hands. I would have, and should have, set it up much earlier. Only I was afraid of facing the pressure. The pressure to write, the pressure to think and unveil all of that in this diary which is public. When I come to think of it, my most writing-productive days were way back in college. I used to slave it out in the weekly school paper, make money through essay contests (haha!), and scribble poems and stories on tissue paper. But that was 40 million years ago, when my self-concept and that of most people in my circle were undeniably tied to "writing," only to realize a few years later that such things would change. The closest I get to writing these days would be quite embarrassing for anybody to admit: term papers and email.

Not that I have little stuff to write about; I actually consider myself luckier than most people I know. I got my first overseas trip at the age of 20, a month-long cultural tour in Japan, and from that time on, my travelling days have never stopped. To date I have been to six countries in Asia and Europe, lived for some time in two of them which were Japan and Spain, where I live at the moment to get my masters degree. In a few weeks' time I will go on a 3-week backpacking tour of five countries in Western Europe. To my dismay, most of these days have passed without me documenting them except in fancy albums I store in my flat in Malaga and in my parent's house in Sta. Mesa. But there are things which pictures are not capable to tell, like losing your way in a mountain trek, spending the night in a creepy hostel, throwing away excess baggage at the airport, or inching your way through a group of bullish street dogs. There is a wealth of life experiences I could make a fuss of, and now I decide to write them down. It freightens me to forget so I must write. And hey! I could write them in four languages: Filipino, English, Spanish and Japanese! And next year, maybe in French, too!



For my blog, I choose the title El Puente Romano. I almost put off opening this blog today, because I couldn't seem to hit upon a nice title as I was setting up the account. Most blogs I have seen have author-descriptive titles, but I hate self-description. So I choose the name of my favorite spot in Spain which is The Roman Bridge of Cordoba. It is a multiple-arched bridge with a dilapidated water wheel at one end and a tower at the other and spans over the Guadalquivir river of Andalucia. Last winter, I took a morning walk along the bridge covered with so much mist at 6 am it was almost blinding. There was a small statue of the Virgin Mary at the middle part, and dried rose petals scattered on the floor. I could count the few strangers at the bridge at that time of the morning, and feeling this deep sense of peace from the silence and the cold, my heart began to sing..."Kulang man sa 'tin itong sandali, alam ko na tayo'y magkikitang muli. Hangga't may pag-asa pa na haharapin, ikaw lang ang mamahalin..."

Haaayay! Chinky!