NIE en Almendralejo

In order to stay legally in Spain, even with a student visa, you have to go and apply for an NIE and a TIE (número de identificación extranjera and tarjeta de identificación extranjera).  You can do it at any police station in any town that is large enough to have the appropriate facilities.  For us, that means a journey to Almendralejo, which is about 35 minutes away.  Chus had the morning off of lessons, so she took us to get out paperwork sorted out.  Luckily, the husband of Elena, one of the English teachers who works at my school, works in Almendralejo as a police officer and knows the person we needed to see.  He called this man, Victor, for us, and so he was expecting us.  We had all our forms, an EX-17 form, el nombramiento, copies of our passport, and extra copies of everything, so we were all set. 

Then the problems started, as seems typical for us.  First, as we are headed over to the bank to pay for it, Victor comes running out of the building to tell us that we will not be able to complete the rest of the process today.  The machine that takes our fingerprints or prints the small card with our NIE is not working, so we will have to come back.  Then, I am looking at the two papers he gave me and the NIE numbers on them are not the same; one has seven digits and the other only six.  We go back, and he changes them to match.  Then we finally get to the bank and end up waiting 40 minutes for a 2 minute transaction, and this guy totally cut us at the bank.  By the time we got back on the road, I was tired, kind of grumpy, and remembering that I am sick.  All that before heading to school to give another introductory lesson…what a day! The best part: coming home and taking a much deserved and needed siesta.  I was definitely born for that part of Spanish culture.