I finally got my TIE card today!!!. The infamous ID card that proves I’m here legally. Holy Moley finally. I got on the bus with my boyfriend at 7am in the freezing cold to ride to the next town of Orihuela to go to the police station to pick up my ID.

We waited outside in 35F until they called me into the station. Then it was freezing inside as well. I don’t know what it is here but no one has the heat on anywhere. Coffee shops, restaurants, stores, police stations. My hands were numb even with my gloves on. Jeeses man, it’s bad enough I’m freezing in my apartment that has no damn heat but I have to freeze on buses and in public buildings too. And they say Spain has mild weather. Yea right for an animal covered in fur maybe.

So, they won’t let my boyfriend in to translate. That’s fine I’m independent I say to myself. I have Google translate damn it. They tell me to stand in the corner by the door in front of 10 staff behind desks attending to people. I feel like a little kid in the corner except I haven’t been admonished yet.

They motion me forward and I sit in front of a skinny grumpy looking man with the sign TIE over his head.  Due to experience with massive bureaucracy here, I was prepared to hand over my life in case there was a problem so I had every document with me but my blood type just in case.

But no, he only wanted my appointment letter and my passport. He motions to the fingerprint machine for me to put my right index finger on it. Then the left. Now he looks grumpier. Uh oh. He couldn’t get my fingerprints to take on the machine. So, he mashes my right index finger down then the left. He shakes his head.  Then he had me rub my forehead, put it on the machine again. And still no take. He squirts alcohol gel in my hand to clean them and mashed each finger again.  No take. He started talking in Spanish to the staff around him..  uh oh.. here we go I thought… He can’t prove it’s me. My fingers are unreadable. I wanted to say I’m a nurse I’ve washed my hands so much over 30 years the prints are weak… it’s not my fault. Plus my fingers are numb, if you turned on the heat maybe ide get blood to them!

However, I do look like my photo, blond, fair skin, hazel eyes, illiterate in Spanish… yep obviously an American, but he doesn’t even look at me. Four more times he mashed my index fingers on the device. Then he looked really irritated. The man and woman behind him step up. They look at me then the computer. More garbled Spanish. Uh oh now what I think…He breathes something under his breath… a swear word maybe? Then he finally looks at my passport and compared it to my face. He hits a button on the computer then shoved the passport and the ID across the desk to me and says nothing. I say fini? He nodded his head, adios.

Phew I got it! Now I only must go through it all again in 4 months. Great.

So off we go to the train station to go back as there is no return bus to Albatera. I try and speak Spanish to my boyfriend as it’s really starting to annoy me I can’t speak anything. I try to say I’m freezing my ass off in Spanish. He just looks at me like I’m being funny. For some reason the cold doesn’t bother him at all. And he doesn’t understand what I say anyway. Ok wait till you want to see me in sexy lingerie later, its too cold to wear anything but a coat, you’ll be sorry. Then you will understand me…

We get on the train and OMG there is heat on board. I relish it for the 18-minute ride back. We arrive and then to prove I’m trying to speak Spanish for real I call the taxi myself in Spanish and ask for a taxi “ahora” i.e. now to take us from the station to Albatera where he now must begin his residency stuff as well. He has his first appointment at the tiny health center there to register with a doctor etc. Even though he is already a citizen he still must do everything I did but more. Today it’s his first medical registration appointment.

So we go into the local health center that I’ve been to before where no one would look at me because I’m “private” and not part of the Spanish public system. I wait in the barren waiting room on a  cold plastic chair while he registers with the social worker to get in the health system etc. I stare at the peeling signage and faded pictures on the walls…

Well, I only lasted 15 minutes. The place was as cold as the outside. What the F? This is a health center and patients are here and you don’t turn on the heat either? Plus the chairs are hard plastic and as cold as my ass. My hands are going numb. I watch people come in and sit. No one is complaining, like can you turn on the heat?? No one. Is it me? I see some staff walking about in white scrubs and no name badges. No wonder, god forbid anyone know their names in case you need to know who is who. I can’t tell a doctor from a nurse from a tech. And no one smiles. Of course not. Their walking around because it’s to cold to sit and tend to patients. I can’t imagine being asked to put on a gown. Or maybe with it being so cold it means the patients won’t dilly dally and ask questions. Hurry up I’m freezing give me a script bye bye. Next. Hmm there could be a method to their madness. But no, the nurse in me doesn’t agree.. if your sick you don’t need to freeze too… I feel sorry for the patients…But it’s not my call and it’s not the US. But I am aware it may be the best they have. I wish they had better.

I check my watch and I can’t feel my fingers. That’s it, I text the BF and go outside. I walk to the apartment which I know has no heat as well. I go in and turn on my electric blanket and type this when my hands warmed up.

But at least I have my ID card. So something good happened today no matter what.

Somewhere in Spain