Paperwork treasurehunt

On Thursday I did the paperwork treasurehunt. To be able to complete my contract and get a bank account I was told I should get my N.I.E number. I guessed that with the EU common labor market this should be easy. And it was, sort of. I had been warned by Cedrik that I should get up early to wait in line at the office. However, on wednesday I walked by the office just to check. The lady looked at me and asked if I had a ticket - when I said no she rolled her eyes and told me to come back early the next day. Ok. Cedrik was right.

So I got up early and was at the office about 7:40. The office opens at 9:00 but quite a long queue had already formed. Good thing I brought a book. When the office opened the queue was processed at reasonable speed but the "processing" was actually just that people got a number to wait on like in a bank or a post office. After about an hour more of waiting my number was up. The lady who processed my NIE application spoke english, so the paperwork was smooth. She also instructed me that the next steps in my application were

1) Go to a bank and pay 6,70Euro to get a stamp.
2) Take the stamp and go to the police station to have my actual certificate printed.

These last two steps went well. No lines, great.