Paperwork

After the long weekend we have a lot to do with our paperwork. The priority is to find a school for my son and in order to do that we need to register ourselves as living here. Very early on Tuesday we gather all our papers, both in English and Spanish, all passports, birth certificates, marriage certificate, lease contract, "the husband´s" work contract, school´s reports, etc etc. A big file. Then we went to the first office at the local council building to register ourselves or empadronarse. After explaining what we wanted at the door, we were given a number and sent inside. When our turn came we were allocated a desk with a scared looking youngish girl. As it happens to us, it was her first day at work and she didn´t have a clue and what should have taken at most 10 minutes, took us a whole hour!!! Loads of checking with her supervisor, colleagues and even us, but she managed to give us our certificates. Then we went to visit schools around town and we´ve been repeatedly told that they´re all fully booked and that we should go first to the ministry of education so they can get us a place. Of course, when we finally arrived at the ministry´s office, the told us that we have to register the child first in the school and if the chosen one is fully booked then the ministry´s people will find us a place. So, back to the school where I have to put my feet down and get all the way to the headmaster so they can register my son then and there. Back to the ministry and now we have to wait for them to call us and offer us a place. According to the law, they have to find us a place in a school close to home or either parent´s work but that can be whenever in the province so I better start checking private schools. On Wednesday, the son and me went to the central police office in the Barceloneta, down town Barcelona, in order to start the procedure to get our NIE or foreign national number (numero nacional de extrangero) that all foreigners should have in order to be able to work and live here more than 6 months of the year. We just pop in without a previous date and there was a bit of a queue and we had to handle loads of original and photocopied documents plus pictures and of course show them our passports. It was really hot inside the police and god knows I´m not the most patient person in the world but next to us were the huge queue for the non-eu and these poor people had folders even bigger than us and their queue was massive. They were mothers with young babies, loads of children, mostly young men and families and I´ve been told that their queues are so big that they have to go really early in the morning just to get a number for when the actual queue starts. It´s always sobering to compare oneself to people in direst circunstances. Today we checked private schools in town and they´re also fully booked, the ministry people didn´t call me yet and I start to panic and thinking of taking my son to a British school miles from here, in English and bloody expensive but reliable. I cannot even think of homeschooling, we´ll be mad in a week. And the school starts next Tuesday!!!! And guess what? Next Monday will be a non-working day again, yes, another fiesta.