Commencing The Beauraucratic Odyssey

The coordinator at my school phoned a mysterious number for me, and after a short phone conversation in which I was casually asked whether my Chinese visa refusal was due to criminal convictions (if only it was something so glamorous), I made an appointment to receive some “help”. Luckily, Roselle (who has been studying Spanish at University and so attended the ‘Induction’) didn’t have the faintest idea what we were supposed to do either.

We arrived at the Bilingual Programme office 20 minutes late as they had misprinted the address in the ‘Introduction Pack’. I should have taken this to be a bad omen, but instead I entered the building with a smile on my face and hope in my heart. After about 30 seconds, it became clear that Irena had no idea about my “special situation”, and she seemed appalled that I had been allowed anywhere near Spain (or her office) without being able to speak at least intermediate level Spanish. After chastising me for not coming to the induction, and also helpfully highlighting my own countries bureaucracy problems, she then preceded to explain that the entire NIE system in Spain is screwed up due to cut backs in staff as a result of the recession, and that it would be pretty difficult to get this magic piece of paper that proves that you exist.

Nevertheless, she commenced phoning numbers from the websites for us. At the end of each number there was an answering machine playing a helpful and informative message, detailing the next number to ring. After phoning 5 numbers, she printed off an official looking form, assuring us that everything would be ok if we just went to this random place really far away and filled in some other forms. Dubious, but ready to explore the city, we set off.

After 50 minutes of walking in the baking sun, and following the directions of various gnarled old men (“turn left at the roundabout, pass the insane asylum and the old prison...”. Have we actually stepped into the start of a horror movie?), we made it to the Commiseriat.

It was quite difficult to tell that the building was a police station, as it was bright yellow, with what looked like a large circus tent at the back. Thankfully, we spotted a steady stream of Chinese and Mexicans on their pilgrimage to and from the back of the big top tent, so we knew we were probably in the wrong place, as places that catered for non-EU immigrants usually weren’t in the mood to complete paperwork for people who could not be deported and therefore were “non-urgent” cases. At the front gate of the compound, a rather grumpy young man informed us that the department we wanted was closed at 12.30; his facial expression denoted that we were obviously idiots for thinking anyone working in an office could be bothered with dealing with stupid immigrants after lunch.