Payday!

I got paid today! After a month of working, I was finally given my first paycheque today... Although there was some confusion about who I was supposed to be paid through: the Junta de Andalucía (ie. the school) or MEC (the program which I applied to to get this job). We tried to sort it out, but in the end we just had to wait an extra week to find out, because although one of the many boring speakers at orientation had tried to explain this detail to us, I couldn't understand them as the whole thing was in Spanish!

It's a good thing I had plenty of money in the bank to last me until now.

Unfortunately the cheque the school gave me was through a bank called BBVA, and my bank account that I set up was with the Banco de Andalucia. This meant I would have had to wait in line at one bank to cash the cheque (so that the school is not charged a fee), then go wait in line at my bank to deposit the money. To get around this, I decided to set up a second Spanish bank account. I had originally wanted to open an account at the BBVA, but they wouldn't let me do it with just a passport. Expecting difficulties, today I went in prepared: I had my cheque, a letter from the Junta de Andalucia which we received at orientation that explained our situation and what we would be using the bank account for, and my NIE certificate. I think it was the NIE that did the job, as she needed some sort of an ID number and they are not allowed to open accounts with only a passport - you must be a resident of some kind. However, they gave me a much better account as I can now take out 600 Euros at a time instead of only 150 Euros (like at the Banco de Andalucia). Plus, with the Blue Joven plan they gave me, you do not have to pay any fees if you are under 25!