Bureaucracy

I'm sorry to have been away for so long (I said this a couple of posts ago, but it's always worth resaying). One of the reasons is because I've had a lot of time taken away from me by the exciting Spanish bureaucratic system. An example:

1. Marian and I want to open a bank account together.
2. We go to the Caja Madrid, queue for an hour, and are told that we can't open a bank account together because our statuses are different. I am a non-resident; Marian is a resident. Non-resident bank accounts offer much worse deals than resident ones. Marian can open a resident's account, but even if I become a resident, I would never be able to become a co-titular of the account. The best I could hope for would to become an autorisado, who has rights on the money, but can't i.e. open or close the account, or change any of its details. To open a bank account, we are told, you need an N.I.F. (Número de Identificación Fiscal).
4. We go to the N.I.F. office. There is no one there waiting to be served, but we are told that they can't see us without an appointment. We phone for an appointment and are given one on 28 January 2009.
5. We decide to fill in the time by comparing the deals on offer at various banks. We go to La Caixa, queue for an hour, and eventually talk to a man who says that he can open an account for us today, and we don't need an N.I.F, but an N.I.E. (Número de Identificación de Extranjero).
6. The N.I.E. is handed out at police stations; you don't need an appointment; they give you one in person; it takes about five minutes. We go to the police station. They are willing to give me an N.I.E., but ask politely if I am registered as a resident of Madrid.
7. We make an appointment to register ourselves as residents of Madrid.
8. We fill in the forms they provide on the internet. You can only be registered in one place, and if there is someone registered in your flat, then they need to confirm that you are allowed to register yourself there.
9. We phone our landlady. She assures us that there is no one registered in our flat.
10. We go to our appointment. It turns out that our landlady is herself registered in our flat. We are told we need to get her permission, and her signature, on the application form. She comes into the city rarely, but will be there next week.
11. We meet our landlady, get her signature, make another appointment to register ourselves.
12. We go to the appointment. Everything is going swimmingly. Then the functionary asks for the photocopy of our landlady's D.N.I. (Documento Nacional de Identidad). Of course, she says, we have to make sure. You could have signed the form yourselves.
13. We go and find our landlady again. She gives us a photocopy of her D.N.I. We make another appointment, which is tomorrow.

On the other hand, the autumn weather's nice and we're getting a lot of fresh air walking from the Communidad offices in the south-east to the police station in the south-west, to the bank, to the N.I.F. office. To the bar, to the bar, to the bar.