Dulcinea and I arrived at the Oficina de Extranjeros, near Estació de França train station, around 11h30. There was a milling and frustrated crowd of immigrants outside, wanting papeles and work permits. There was a metal gate with a guard checking the credentials of everyone wanting to enter. I stepped forward and showed him my documents. Luckily, I had an official printout indicating that no appointment was necessary for me, and the specific hours I should show up (between 12h and 14h, Wednesdays only). It was too early yet, so he didn’t let us in. We went to a nearby café for a hot drink, watched a gang of suspicious youths “almost” rob someone (but the smart girls, sitting at the same café, hugged their bags close to themselves and made it clear they were “onto” the boys’ tricks). Dulcinea and I went back to check out the (now-bigger) milling crowd shortly after 12.

There was a new guard, and he let us both in after checking my papers (I’d heard some people have the experience that their Spanish partner — even a spouse — sometimes isn’t allowed to go in with them). We went through a metal detector (inactive?) and followed the directions the guard had given us. We entered a miserable-looking waiting room full of hopeless people sitting on shoddy chairs. We walked in front of them, bypassed them all to open a door (all while being far from certain that we were doing the right thing). We found ourselves in a big office with three desks, and an official behind each one. We stood by the door until someone motioned us over. I did as much of the speaking as possible, but it was great to have Dulcinea there as an extra set of ears, and as a far better explainer than me, if things got confusing (in a couple of cases, I misunderstood an explanation completely). There was the usual document-showing, the nice woman made me a photocopy of a page I hadn’t brought (a grumpier official would have sent us packing, to make our own photocopies; lucky again!), and then off we were to the next place.

None of the government agencies accepts payment of fees (by any means); they give you a modelo para el pago de las tasas (basically, a bill), which you have to take to a bank and pay it there. You then need to bring this proof of payment to the next place in the bureaucracy chain. For example, you may have to pay a processing fee or a card-issuing fee. In Canada, you’d normally just pay it right there, to the official.

Another key concept here is the resguardo. In the Oficina de Extranjeros, they gave me a handy list of all the things I needed to present at the comisaría (police station), to apply for my TIE (foreigner’s identity card). One required item was a resguardo from my application. I asked the woman what this was, and she said it was the original form I submitted. “You mean, my application for the visa, at the Consulate?” “Yes, it’s whatever you had to submit.” Hmm. (In retrospect, it seems that my situation was not the normal one I’ve seen described on the web: I didn’t have to apply for a residence permit myself, but had it filed “internally” and approved before I actually got my visa, which saved me some complication here in Spain…but it kind of confuses the process since later, I didn’t have the resguardo de solicitud for the permit. Luckily (again — I suspect being blond and Canadian has something to do with this “luck”), at the police station I was allowed to continue on with my application for a residence card, even though I was lacking the appropriate resguardo.)

After paying the latest set of fees (typically 10€) at a nearby bank, we caught another bus, back up town to Gràcia, to a major police station closer to our neighbourhood. Arrived around 13h15, but were told they weren’t allowing anyone else for the day (the processing part is only open 9h-14h every day).

So, that was it for “officlal business” on Wednesday. Since Dulcinea took the day off work, we took a late-afternoon trip to IKEA to look at storage options for “my room” — the small place where all my crap from Montreal will have to be housed. Snacked on albóndigas suecas (Swedish meatballs), then returned home, somehow exhausted, from having actually done very little “work”.

[to be continued]