like being matadoras

toro! toro!

and bulls!

We marveled at Hemingway’s Ronda,

soaked up the sun on the costa del sol

and soaked up other things too

con su mojito

We gorged ourselves on

paella

and tapas! ….and mojitos again

We struck a pose around Gaudi’s masterpieces

And we rooted for our a team!

As always, people ruined our photos

move please

bout ready to pretend she’s a bull and chase them away

and we failed miserably with the self timer

ewww look it’s the trolls that live under the bridge!

We beg you to forget that photo and remember how cute we looked pretending to cheer for the death of an innocent animal

Oh yeah and we went to Spain’s UK, aka Gibraltar. That was weird.

We saw the Atlantic and the Mediterranean

took awkward pictures with the great siege tunnel cannons

ate fish and chips

and got way too close for comfort to the monkeys

I mean WAY too close!

So who is the most Spanish de las dos?

La mamá.

This genia had a bad day and sat down to this!

She IS Spanish!

Source

There is a lot of paperwork involved when you decide to stay in Spain for another year. The bulk of this paperwork is in the NIE renewal process. It’s actually not that horribly bad…except for all the copies you have to make. Also, I would have been entirely lost in regards to what in the heck I needed to provide for this if it weren’t for BEDA and the auxiliares facebook group. The BEDA coordinator sent out a greatly detailed email explaining to us, step by step, what we needed to do in order to renew our NIEs.

The main things you need to make copies of are: your entire passport, your current NIE (front and back), the certificate that shows you’ve completed your work as an auxiliar for the current year, and the letter of your placement for next year. Then you fill out 2 copies of the EX-oo form, which is available online. You also need to pay the tasa for the renewal, which is also available online to fill out. Once you have all of that, you just need to go to the consejeria to turn it all in. You do have to triple check that you’re turning everything in, because the people at the office will not be able to help you in that regard. They just take all your papers and then put a sticker on one of the EX-00 copies to show that you’ve submitted the application.

The only thing is, you will more than likely have to take a day off of work in order to turn everything in because the hours are from 9-2, which is usually when most of us are at work. I was lucky in that my students had a field trip to the amusement park, so I took that day to get it done. I would have felt more comfortable taking the day off work if I hadn’t missed 4 days a few weeks prior when I had tonsillitis. If you do end up taking the day off of work, they will provide you with a justificante at the extranjería upon your request.

The next step is getting your autorización de regreso, which you need if you have an expired NIE and are planning to travel outside of Spain. Getting this is a pretty simple process that’s done at Aluche. You need a copy of your passport (when I went, the guy only took the page with my picture and information…but I had brought a copy of the entire thing JIC), a copy of your NIE (front and back), your paid tasa (which you need to pick up at a police station because it’s not available online), a copy of the EX-00 with the sticker showing you’ve submitted your NIE renewal paperwork, a copy of your flight plans, a printout of your appointment for the authorization (you do that online), and 2 filled out copies of the EX-13 (available online). You need to bring the original of each document to show the government worker, so make sure you bring all of those with you too. Again, the Aluche office is open from 9-2, so you’ll probably need to ask for a justificante.

My biggest piece of advice is to get to the offices a few minutes before they open. I can assure you that there will already be a line, so it’s best to get an early start. For my authorization, I got there about 15 minutes before they opened and was out the door again just 20 minutes after they let us all in. I got to the renewal place about 10 minutes after they opened, and was in and out in less than 5 minutes. I heard of one person who went later in the day to get his authorization and waited in line for 5 hours. Better to sacrifice some sleep and be able to get it done early and quickly, rather than lose an entire day at one of these offices.

All that being said, doing all this isn’t as bad as it seems. Once you start getting all the documents together, you realize it’s not that bad of a process. It’s just really time consuming. It’s also entirely worth it in order to be able to stay in Spain for one more year

 (por Nines Martín Trejo)

© Nanas Ediciones Clandestinas