Red tape hell
So, those of you who read the previous gospel may remember my exhuberent praise of having an ID card. Fear not, euro-phobes, the worm has turned!!!The other week I had the dubious pleasure of spending 3 hours in queue to try and sort out my residence permit. What a farce!! It works something like this.
You spend 1 hour in queue A, where somebody checks if you have got all the necessary paperwork, and then sends you to queue B, which hopefully is the right one, because noone seems to know exactly. You then spend another 45 minutes in that queue for someone to have you sign a completely different, and then, yes, you´ve guessed it, half an hour in queue C to have your finger prints taken!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Fair enough you might say, if you want to work here, suffer the consequences. But here´s the best bit....... Signs all over the place saying "You do not need this document if you are memberof an EU country!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!You then have to wait three months for them to process the whole thing and send you a letter inviting you come back to collect your card....
Enough moaning though.
Generally things seem to be going well. Work is more or less sorted, and whilst I don´t know how long the euphoria will last I am more or less enjoying what I am doing. Although this unpaid preparation time is a bit of pain. This weekend we have a staff do, and the school has generously offered to pay 50 % of the bill. Someone somewhere is making a lot of money, but it sure isn´t me!!
Still can´t complain, I earn more than a lot of Spaniards for the hours I put in. Am still in the same accomodation, but it has changed somewhat since the summer when it was 75 % empty. There are now French, Colombians and Brazilians living there, so the party atmosphere has increased. The only thing is if you want to sleep you can´t because the noise travels far too well between the wafer-thin walls, and of course, the don´t go out to the pub until gone 1 am.
There is something quite strange about getting up for work and seeing your flatmates come back drunk (on a Tuesday!!!!!!)
posted by SG @ 2:22 p. m.
