Hello! Or should I say, Hola!!!!
Reporting to you live just 4 days after officially becoming a Spanish Citizen! That’s right, 3 years and 3 months after beginning the process, I officially swore my fidelity to the Spanish King. Actually, I didn’t do much swearing (besides in the form of using bad words when I saw how long the line was to swear), but actually only signed a paper and left.
Unlike the experience of other people who have gone through this process, I was NOT read a long document and then asked to ‘jurar’. Instead, it went like this:
*This is my experience from swearing INSIDE OF SPAIN. I applied from Spain, so I swore in Spain (Madrid). This will not be the case for everyone*
When I arrived at the place where they handle all nationality documents, I waited in this huge line:
At the front of that line, they took a paper I had filled out with information about my name and my family, which will be used to create my ‘birth certificate’.
After waiting in that line, we were sent upstairs to a room with a lot of other people where we waited for about 20 minutes.
Eventually, the judge came in and explained that we are swearing allegiance to the Spanish King and that, depending on your current nationality, you may be agreeing to renounce your current citizenship. They then called each person up, one by one, to briefly tell them if they are renouncing their citizenship and then you quickly sign a document.
I was one of the last to be called up and they specified that under this law, I DO NOT have to renounce my American citizenship, and it was also written in bold on the document I signed. I quickly signed, and that was that.
There were no other Spanish flags in the entire building except the one you see above, so here is my best shot of me as a new Spanish citizen:
We were told that within 15 days, we would receive our ‘birth certificates’, which we can use to apply for the passport and the DNI here in Spain. It feels so good to have completed this process! I have received many emails from readers asking various questions about my experience, so if there is anything I did not cover here, please send me an email or leave a comment.
Besos 😉
