Red Tape Spanish style...

Tuesday we were once again up early to meet the solicitor to go to Almeria for our NIE's (one of many pieces of bureaucracy we have to go through in Spain) and we followed the solicitor in his car as we had to swap our car over at Almeria Airport from a people mover that we needed to accomodate our luggage on arrival to a regular car we would be hiring until we would be in a position to buy our own which brings us nicely back to the reason we were going to Almeria in the first place! In Spain an NIE is needed to open a bank account, make major purchases like a home or car. Think of it like a National Insurance Number in the UK or a Social Security number in the USA. It isn't just for foreigners moving to Spain, everyone is assigned a number which is theirs for life and then opens the doors for applying for other things like Residency etc. 


We were impressed with the smoothness of the proceedings and we were seen pretty quickly in the Ayuntamiento de Almería (the main police station). We then learned that as our solicitor is known there he was given tickets for us that were kept aside that smoothed our path into being seen quicker! It is obviously not what you know but who you know and we quickly realised the fee we had each paid him were becoming well worth the cost! He had spotted a potential catch 22 with Stuart's application and had drawn up a contract that would make it appear we already had a place to buy as otherwise he might not have had his issued until he did. A real catch 22 indeed, as no NIE would mean we'd have problems opening a bank account to get the funds over to be in a position to buy in the first place! So applications duly filed we were happy to hear that our solicitor would be able to pick them up for us a week the following Friday which considering Easter was coming inbetween wasn't too bad at all!  

We adjourned to a nearby cafe to enjoy a coffee together and discussed how he would contact us the folowing week to furnish us with our NIE numbers. Ironically we had parked in the car park for the shopping centre next to the hotel we had stayed in on the first night! So we left him there and went into Al Campo again to get some needed applicances and a few things we had missed during our THREE shops the previous day! We had found out where we needed to go to refuel the car before returning to the airport so refueled we dropped off the people mover and swapped to a VW Golf that we would have for the next month before we could make arrangements to purchase one of our own. 

A traditional seafood paella we enjoyed!

We drove back to Turre and then once again found we needed to do a bit more grocery shopping in Mojácar Playa!! We had lunch while we waited for a second set of keys for our apartment to be cut at the rental agency. They recommended a tradional Spanish place just up from their office so we thought we'd sample something typically Spanish (see picture!). We did a few other things to orient ourselves with our surroundings and the area and then headed back to the apartment to rest up a little.