The Saga of the Foreigner's Identity Card (TIE)

---

Lest you imagine that living abroad is all glamour, let me remind you that there are lots of challenges involved as well. One of the difficulties of moving to a foreign country is getting new identification. With my program, I needed to get a foreigner identification card (TIE), which also would extend my visa. The original student visa I was issued was only for 3 months, which is typical. My visa had my foreign identification number (NIE) already, so I didn’t have to apply for that, only the card. So, after we signed our apartment lease, I took the lease and my school contract to the city hall (ayudamiento/concello) in Ourense. The worker there gave me an ‘empadronamiento’, which said I was a resident of Ourense. That was the first and easiest step in the process.



Later that week, I went to the national police station to actually apply for the TIE. Some other friends who just moved to Ourense had already done it quickly and easily, so I was optimistic. I took the empadronamiento, my passport, copies of my passport main page, visa page, and entry stamp, school contract, background check and medical check copy (didn’t end up needing the last two). When I arrived at the police station to apply for my TIE (actually with a cold and feeling pretty sick), the guy told me I had to go across town to the subdelegation of the government to have them give me some kind of paper that certified when I entered the Schengen Zone, based on my passport stamp.



So, already a bit defeated, I trudged to the subdelegation. There was a bit of a line, so I waited. Finally, the woman saw me and, after she looked up my NIE in the computer, she told me I actually had to go to Lugo because my school is in Lugo province, even though I live here in Ourense. I had heard from a couple others before about this, but I thought they had been told that when they tried to get their empadronamiento, so I was shocked to get the news that I would have to travel to a completely different city to apply.



I also realized that the next available time I would have to go would be a week in the future. It would be cutting it close because ideally we should apply for our TIEs within 30 days of arriving in the Schengen Zone.



All of the potential offices I would have to go to are only open until 2pm, as well. Since it takes over an hour and a half by bus, I would have to take the 6:30am bus. It wasn’t possible to buy the tickets online either. The next Monday, I walked over to the bus station to buy my tickets. I used my cell phone on wifi to search for the bus station, since we still didn’t have internet in our apartment. The bus station seemed pretty far from the city center (6 km), but I verified that it was the right one by also searching the specific bus company (Monbus), which appeared in the same place. I also wanted to figure out the best way to get to the bus station in the morning, because the city buses don’t start until around 6:30am.



Luckily it was a nice day, and the walk was mostly along the Miño River. I walked past some nice-looking hot springs (termas) at Outariz, and thought I’d be able to take the tourist train back to the city center from there. Unfortunately, it took much longer than anticipated to get to my destination because there is a big highway and an un-scalable hill. So I had to walk around a bit to figure out how to get back up onto the main road. Once I got to the place the bus station was supposed to be, I realized Google and Google Maps had failed me. There was no bus station there. I had searched in English, and for some reason only the non-existent bus station I’d walked to had shown up on my cell phone (maybe due to poor internet connection or something?).



When I searched again in Spanish from the middle of nowhere, I saw that the bus station was actually really close to the train station, about 1 km from the city center. And I had missed the semi-hourly tourist bus back. So I walked over to the real bus station from where I was. Although I was kind of angry about going to the completely wrong place, I was also relieved that the bus station was much closer to my house, and it would be easier to get to and from it.



So, eventually I arrived at the bus station and went to the counter to buy my ticket. The man told me that I could just buy my ticket on the bus in the morning. *head shake*



The saga of the TIE doesn’t end there. On Wednesday, I successfully caught the 6:30 am bus to Lugo. I arrived around 8:15am, and no offices open until 9am, so I wandered around the city in the semi-dark, foggy, cold morning. There’s a wall built by the Romans that surrounds the old city, so I did a loop on that. Once 9am rolled around, I headed to the subdelegation for foreigners, expecting to get a paper that verified my arrival in the Schengen Zone. However, when I went there, the women had no idea about that and just told me to go to the national police.



At the national police, I waited for my turn and then explained the situation. Please note that every interaction with the government so far had been in Spanish. My Spanish is not great, but I was muddling through. This program is really without any support for newbies. No one at my school has asked if I need help getting anything either, which is totally different from my experience in Korea. Although there were times I needed more space from my Korean coteachers, they felt a responsibility to help me navigate the difficult systems, like the bank, the identity card, cell phone, and apartment, all of which I’ve now handled here on my own.



Anyway, the national police lady told me that because I live in Ourense, I should apply for the TIE there. Yes, it’s a circle of reasoning. The people in Ourense told me to go to Lugo because my school is there, and then the people in Lugo were telling me to go to Ourense because I live there.



I insisted that I’d been told to come to Lugo. She made some calls to the national police in Ourense (who were not the ones who’d told me to come—it was the subdelegation), and she told me they agreed that I should go to Ourense. I politely asked her to write something about the situation so that I could take it to Ourense, because I had already had quite enough bullshiz, and was definitely not going to leave Lugo without some evidence that I’d come and tried to apply for my TIE. She, as far as I could tell, rudely told me that she wasn’t going to write anything because she’d talked to them and it was enough.



I left, very close to frustrated tears. Two other fellow auxiliars in the same situation as me were also planning to come to Lugo that day with one of their coteachers. I called and talked to one about the situation, and she suggested I wait for them and all go together to sort it out. It was such a relief to have a native Spanish speaker coming, as well as reinforcements. While I waited for them, I wandered around the old neighborhood and went in the museum, which was really cool, especially for being free.



I met them in the first place again, the subdelegation foreigners’ office. After talking to two different workers, who also made a lot of calls, we were told we could apply in Ourense, Lugo, or Monforte de Lemos (where the other two worked). It was cruelly ironic that after so many hours and offices and euros, apparently we had all of those options. It seems that a number of employees in three different cities have no idea what’s going on. So, because we were already in Lugo and with a native Spanish speaker, we went again to the national police in Lugo.



Unfortunately, though, we arrived around 1:30, only half an hour before they closed. The other auxiliars needed copies of their entry stamps, and we also needed to get money orders from the bank. We were so, so, so close, but there wasn’t time to complete all the paperwork, so we left the office again without having succeeded. I also want to mention that the original rude worker continued to insist to the Spanish coteacher that she’d been right.



I took a bus back to Ourense with one of the auxiliars. It had been nice to take a trip outside of Ourense, but we returned empty-handed and still slightly pessimistic about getting our TIEs in Ourense.



That auxiliar went to try in Ourense the next day. She said the woman took her stuff like it was no big thing, but then the system was down, and it couldn’t be completed! On Friday, it was processed, though. That gave me the confidence to go on Monday. The woman at first told me to go to the subdelegation, but later said I just need to go and get the money order from the bank. I’m still not sure what role the subdelegation has, but it turned out not to be necessary, according to the woman. So, I ended up finally succeeding in applying for my TIE. She told me to return in about a month to pick up my card, so everyone cross your fingers!

---