Bureaucracy.

18 Jun 2013 2 Comments

by Yari in auxiliares de conversación Tags: , , ,

There is a lot of paperwork involved when you decide to stay in Spain for another year. The bulk of this paperwork is in the NIE renewal process. It’s actually not that horribly bad…except for all the copies you have to make. Also, I would have been entirely lost in regards to what in the heck I needed to provide for this if it weren’t for BEDA and the auxiliares facebook group. The BEDA coordinator sent out a greatly detailed email explaining to us, step by step, what we needed to do in order to renew our NIEs.

The main things you need to make copies of are: your entire passport, your current NIE (front and back), the certificate that shows you’ve completed your work as an auxiliar for the current year, and the letter of your placement for next year. Then you fill out 2 copies of the EX-oo form, which is available online. You also need to pay the tasa for the renewal, which is also available online to fill out. Once you have all of that, you just need to go to the consejeria to turn it all in. You do have to triple check that you’re turning everything in, because the people at the office will not be able to help you in that regard. They just take all your papers and then put a sticker on one of the EX-00 copies to show that you’ve submitted the application.

The only thing is, you will more than likely have to take a day off of work in order to turn everything in because the hours are from 9-2, which is usually when most of us are at work. I was lucky in that my students had a field trip to the amusement park, so I took that day to get it done. I would have felt more comfortable taking the day off work if I hadn’t missed 4 days a few weeks prior when I had tonsillitis. If you do end up taking the day off of work, they will provide you with a justificante at the extranjería upon your request.

The next step is getting your autorización de regreso, which you need if you have an expired NIE and are planning to travel outside of Spain. Getting this is a pretty simple process that’s done at Aluche. You need a copy of your passport (when I went, the guy only took the page with my picture and information…but I had brought a copy of the entire thing JIC), a copy of your NIE (front and back), your paid tasa (which you need to pick up at a police station because it’s not available online), a copy of the EX-00 with the sticker showing you’ve submitted your NIE renewal paperwork, a copy of your flight plans, a printout of your appointment for the authorization (you do that online), and 2 filled out copies of the EX-13 (available online). You need to bring the original of each document to show the government worker, so make sure you bring all of those with you too. Again, the Aluche office is open from 9-2, so you’ll probably need to ask for a justificante.

My biggest piece of advice is to get to the offices a few minutes before they open. I can assure you that there will already be a line, so it’s best to get an early start. For my authorization, I got there about 15 minutes before they opened and was out the door again just 20 minutes after they let us all in. I got to the renewal place about 10 minutes after they opened, and was in and out in less than 5 minutes. I heard of one person who went later in the day to get his authorization and waited in line for 5 hours. Better to sacrifice some sleep and be able to get it done early and quickly, rather than lose an entire day at one of these offices.

All that being said, doing all this isn’t as bad as it seems. Once you start getting all the documents together, you realize it’s not that bad of a process. It’s just really time consuming. It’s also entirely worth it in order to be able to stay in Spain for one more year 🙂

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Winding Down.

30 May 2013 1 Comment

by Yari in auxiliares de conversación Tags: , , , , , ,

The end of my first year in Spain is quickly approaching. I can’t believe how quickly these months have gone by! I only have 2 weeks left and then I head back to Maryland for the summer. I have so much to do before I leave and I feel like I don’t have enough time. I’m currently attempting to get all of my paperwork for my NIE renewal together. It’s a pain. So many copies need to be made and tasas need to be paid. I really truly did not mean for that to rhyme. I’m getting all the copies and such done this week because I want to head over to turn in all my paperwork next Wednesday since my students are going on a field trip to the amusement park so that way I’m not missing any actual class. Seeing as how I was out a few days last week because I had the illness of death, I’m trying to get this done without missing too much work.

I never knew tonsillitis could suck so hardcore, but having a fever of 102.7 was no party. And the fact that it took me filling a ziplock bag with ice and placing it on my head, neck, and back to get it to finally go down was ridiculous. Oh and apparently the infection was so bad that it caused me to have blisters on my hands and feet as well. Thankfully I’ve finished the antibiotics and am feeling as good as new now. And once again I am eternally grateful to the fact that my insurance here covers house calls from the doctor. There was no way I could make the bus and metro ride to see my doctor in the city.

I wish the fun ended with the NIE renewal…but no. I also have to get an autorización de regreso since I leave to go back to the states soon and my NIE will be expired and I need that to be able to return to Spain in September. Oh and did I mention that both of these things require me to pay a tasa at the bank? And banks here close for the day at 2 in the afternoon…when I’m still at work. It’s super convenient. I think the best part has been making 2 copies of every single page in my passport because they sometimes require a copy of the entire thing for both the NIE renewal and the authorization. I say sometimes because it’s a luck of the draw whether the person says you need the entire thing or just the first page and visa page. I’m basically expecting some version of this to go down:

I also had some confusion filling out the EX-00 form for the renewal. I think I’ve got it correct, but there were 2 sections that threw me off. I’m pretty sure they’re right, but I’m  paranoid that I’m going to do something wrong and screw up my entire renewal process. I’ll be sure to write another post once I actually go file it.

And on an entirely and completely random note: if you’ve read my About the Expat section, you will see that The Book Thief is listed as one of my all-time favorite books. Well, one of my sisters mentioned to me that she’s reading it for the first time and it made me want to reread it (I’ve already read it twice), but I legitimately had to stop reading because I started to cry every single time Rudy Steiner appeared/was mentioned. I tweeted this to the author, Markus Zusak, yesterday on twitter and he REPLIED to me. I just about screamed. Here’s the screenshot of it:

markuszusak

This is the 2nd time that someone I hugely love/admire has either replied or favorited my tweet. A few months ago, I tweeted that all I wanted in my life was to marry Ronan Farrow and he favorited the tweet:

RonanFarrow

So basically, I’m going to marry Ronan Farrow and I’m also BFF with Markus Zusak.

That’s all for now. I’ll be finishing up my Italy posts soon. I’m still writing up the Rome post and the small Siena post.

¡Hablamos Pronto!