...and what happened with the NIE-number?

Well, today I received a letter from the Spanish authorities regarding my application for the NIE-number. The resolution was negative and the instructions on the letter guided me to apply for the number from the authorities of the city I will be living in once I get to Spain. No harm done here, except that I won't be able to take care of all the things immediately once I get there. The only thing that makes me wonder is why the web page of the Ministry of Interior Affairs of Spain says it is possible to apply the number in your country of residence from an embassy or other diplomatic post, yet in the end it isn't. This might be because the legislation regarding the NIE and residencia has been recently renewed and the procedures and rules are still a bit unclear - even for the officials. There is useful information about this in the issue 4/07 of the OLE-magazine and also will be in their future issues. Anyway, I hope this experience might save a little trouble from someone in a similar situation. Here's a quote that confused me from the page in question (in Spanish):

• "Las presentadas en España personalmente por el interesado, en cuyo caso habrá de acreditar que se halla legalmente en territorio español y justificar documentalmente el motivo de la asignación de dicho número.
• Las que se presenten en España por el representante del extranjero, acreditando dicha representación mediante poder general o poder especial, así como justificar documentalmente el motivo de la asignación del número.
• Las que se presenten en las Representaciones Diplomáticas u Oficinas Consulares españolas ubicadas en el país de residencia del solicitante, en unión de los documentos que justifiquen el motivo de la asignación del número."

Source: http://www.mir.es/SGACAVT/extranje/regimen_comunitario/tarjeta_residencia.html

What else is new? Well, nothing much really. These weeks and months seem like only passing the time before getting on the go actually. During the easter time we did some traveling though, visiting my family in Jyväskylä and Kuopio. We also spent one night at our summer cottage, which was a nice experience: having sauna in the middle of the night and sitting out on the porch in the chilly air, seeing the starry sky the way you never can in the city... And while on the road, it seemed as if it was just the time for the swans to do their migration as we saw plenty of those. Here's one picture I took of those beautiful birds:



Oh, and there was a couple of new experiences in store for Rocío as well on this trip: her first icicle and of course since it was easter - mämmi! Take a look: