A HARD DAY AT THE BANK

Who new that opening a bank account could be so hard?

EXPAT DAY #17

A NEW HOME

On Friday, we signed a contract for along term rental in Valencia! Next step, set up accounts for the utilities – gas, electricity, phone & internet. No problem. we’ve done this a few times before. Over the weekend, we went to buy a SIM card for our cell phones, so we’ll have a Spanish phone number. The cell phone company (Moviestar) will also be our internet service provider and we figured out that to set up the billing, it would be much better to have a Spanish bank account. No problem. We put “open a bank account” on our to-do list for first thing Monday morning.

BANKING ADVENTURES

At 8:30 this morning (Monday), we were on our way to the bank. The bank we chose is a little over 1 kilometer from our apartment, so a nice morning walk. Except, it was nowhere to be found when we got to the address Google provided. Google gave us another option and on our second attempt, we found the bank, but were told that we could not open an account without our residence card which we won’t have until around mid-May. (Never mind that the bank’s website and a few of our expat friends said otherwise.) Our third bank attempt also failed because we didn’t have an appointment (a Spanish phone number is required to make an appointment).

Our fourth try was looking promising. After waiting a few minutes, we were escorted to Desk #8 where a friendly man invited us to take a seat. He spoke no English, so we communicated via our very limited Spanish and help from Google Translate. We presented all the documents that we knew would be required. Then, he asked for proof of income and said that our 2021 U.S. Tax Returns, proof of my Social Security payments, and Ed’s Helix income would suffice. It was amazing to watch Ed access our personal server using his phone and produce these documents within about a minute. I’m impressed! We were feeling hopeful until he asked for our Spanish phone number. UGH!!  Then, he agreed to let us use a friend’s number and were thrilled for a moment until he told us that he had other clients waiting (they had appointments) and we’d have to come back tomorrow.

Time for a café con leche and a good laugh.

GOING IN CIRCLES

Over coffee, we decided to go back to Movistar and get a Spanish SIM card with our U.S. credit card and then change the billing information later. We were in luck! A very friendly English-speaking young woman suggested we buy a pre-paid SIM card, so we’d have a Spanish number to give to the bank and then come back and transfer the new phone number to a phone and internet contract. (Seems like we could have thought of that or, maybe one of the dozen or so expat websites we researched might have suggested it.)  I’m not exactly sure why, but she said we’d need to come back tomorrow to do this. Oh well, laugh and move on. Mañana it is!

A FRENCH CAFÉ ALWAYS HELPS

We stopped at a favorite bakery and bought a loaf of bread and almost 5 kilometers and 4 ½ hours later, we arrived back at our apartment without a Spanish phone number or a bank account, but we did have a loaf of bread! We decided we’d earned a nice lunch. We walked to a little French café near our place and treated ourselves to a bottle of wine along with lunch. We made it home just in time for siesta. “Open a bank account” is on our to-do list for mañana.