Shortly after we had more or less recovered from our bout of food poisoning, we went down to Motril, the nearest big place on the coast, to sort out our NIE (Numero de Identificacion de Extranjeros). It is essentially a tax number for foreigners in Spain and you need it for any official contracts or paperwork (for example if you want to open a bank account, buy a house or change your car´s registration to Spanish number plates).
We weren´t entirely sure where we had to go and so when we passed the Ayuntamiento (Town Hall), it seemed a good place to stop and ask. The guy behind the reception desk wasn´t too sure himself but, as we turned to leave, we bumped into a very helpful man who told us we had to go to the comisaría (police station) and he started giving us a detailed explanation of how we might find it. With an anxious glance at our watches (it was gone 12:30 pm and many places in Spain tend to close at 2 pm for their siesta), we went on our merry way but were called back immediately by Mr Helpful who came running towards us. He had remembered that the comisaría had actually moved into new premises as recently as the previous week but wasn´t 100% sure where exactly they were located now. This, however, did not prevent him from trying to give us directions. If there is one thing Spanish people are not good at, it´s admitting that they don´t know where something is. Whilst he repeatedly scratched his head, thinking hard, our time was ticking away. If, in turn, there is one thing English people are not good at, it is saying what they really think: “Look mate, we appreciate you´re trying to be helpful here but you quite obviously haven´t got a clue where you´re sending us and we´re running out of time, so why don´t you just shrug your shoulders and take a hike and we´ll find somebody else who can help us.” After several more precious minutes had passed we finally managed to get away though not without thanking him profusely for his helpfulness. A brief stop at the guardia civil (civil police) and a quick chat with a traffic warden confirmed the exact location of the comisaría where we finally arrived a short while later. We joined the queue for extranjeros (foreigners) which was mercifully short – phew!
When it was our turn, the lady behind the desk handed us some forms and said: “You fill in!” and she helpfully pretended to hold a pen in her right hand, imitating writing movements. Ian replied in fluent Spanish “Ok, so you´d like us to fill in these forms? Sure. Will that be it or do you need anything else from us?” Surprised, the woman broke into a smile and carried on (this time in Spanish), requesting copies of our passports. No problem, we thought naïvely, handing them over. (I suppose we should have known it wouldn´t be as straightforward as that.) The lady gazed at us blankly, shook her head and informed us that she couldn´t copy our passports as they still hadn´t any photocopiers in the new premises. How annoying, especially as we could have done it ourselves at home. Without these copies, though, our NIE couldn´t be processed. It was by now 1:10 pm, the comisaría would in fact be closing for lunch at 1:30 pm to reopen several hours later, so we had two choices: copy our passports somewhere in the city, fill in the forms and hand everything in within the next twenty minutes or wait several hours and eventually having to drive back up into the mountains in the dark. We opted for the first choice. Consequently, Ian sprinted off whilst I frantically tried filling in both our forms to the best of my ability. (Was apellido surname or first name? What was Ian´s place of birth called again and how did you spell it?) Ian in the meantime, having tried unsuccessfully to persuade a couple of unhelpful office employees to do him a favour and copy our passports, had finally managed to find a little shop with photocopying facilities and in spite of the shopkeeper receiving a phone call halfway through the copying process (which, of course, brought things to a total halt as you can´t possibly do two things at once), he made it back to the comisaría, copies in hand, with about three minutes to spare.
Sitting where we had sat seventeen minutes earlier (slightly out of breath and frazzled), we were then told we should have copied the forms too. We must have looked so frustrated that they took mercy on us and simply let us scribble out the forms again. We were told our NIE would be allocated in a few days time and anybody presenting a copy of the application form (which we were duly handed back) could pick up the desired pieces of paper. For some reason these cannot be sent out by post, not even if you provide a stamped and addressed envelope. What a farce.
To recuperate, we treated ourselves to a cold beer outside a bar overlooking the park and guess what tapa we were served with our drinks? Yup, you got it in one - meatballs. Help! We tried to feed them to a passing dog who was sniffing round the tables but much to our surprise the four-legged creature categorically refused to eat the proffered snack. I can only suppose he must have had a similarly dodgy experience to our Álora incident himself once.
¡Hasta pronto!