My letter to the driver's license people in Canada went off, high speed, cross your fingers and light your candles for me on that one...that temp license would be a very very good thing.
Work suddenly needed photocopies of all my degrees and academic papers, and they have the originals for a day which is kind of giving me kittens, but whatever.....found them all, photocopied them all...etc.
We are part way through updating our empadronament - registering with the gov't where we live, I kid you not.
I went and got the info for the Spanish driving test....I will need, for tomorrow when I go back again:
- a photo
- a medical exam (which I have to pay for, 40 odd €)
- my NIE (and I am sure a photocopy)
- 86.60€ for the test (this does not include the practical)
I bought the book, in Catalan. It is possible to do the test in English, but it is 30 questions and you can only make 3 errors, and if the English in the test is badly done, I could screw it up because I can't understand what they want, and they LOVE a trick question here. I'd rather fail cause I don't understand Catalan than cause they can't write it, wouldn't be so frustrating somehow - though for 87€ I don't want to be failing (ridiculous overcharge for something that costs them almost nothing, how is it possible that the gov't is broke?)
Tomorrow I have to go in and stand in two seperate lines...you know, those ones where you take a number, and you are about 65 away from who they are currently serving, and the lighting is bad, and the AC isn't working and there are only 8 chairs for the 200 people in the room and you wonder what freaking rock some of these people crawled out from under??? Yeah, those ones. Today, only 1 line (45 min), and the lady when I got there DID NOT SPEAK CATALAN!!!! Thought there was a rule about that, no? Don't they have to have that famous nivell C in Catalan????
I am going to try and do the written test in two weeks, the book is SILLY fat, and the man when I bought it gave me two corrections, one is a change in speed limits, fair enough, the other is a change in, get this...OK. Here it is mandatory to carry a yellow reflective jacket (read yet another way to force people to spend money on something frankly useless). Previously it was mandatory that the jacket show the manufacturer's name on the back, now it is not necessary.
I told you they like a stupid question.
You know that will be the only thing I will remember from the whole thing, right?
4 comments:
This sounds like bureaucracy at its height. Remind me not to complain about red tape here in the U.S. for a while!
Now I will remember the need for a reflective jacket forever, too.
Ouch, good luck with all the lines and paperwork. For the reflective jackets, I think it really *is* a safety measure. I've seen around Paris, under rainy days, people outside their car that broke down, with no lights, no jacket, poor visibility, trying to hitchhike! Guy almost got his arm cut by the passing car who couldn't see him, if not worse. Really dangerous. And avoidable with the jacket.
What a nightmare! I remember taking my test-- there is, as you have noted, a ton of pretty obscure information to memorize. Good luck!
JG, it is awesome, but it I have been places where it's worse, I wouldn't consider living there though.
ElP, you have a point in dark, greyish rainy northern Europe...less so in warmer sunny Spain. We never have them in Canada, maybe they figure there's too few of us per km2 to bother!
Kate, PLEASE; say it ain't so! I am hoping that if I memorise the vocab and the numbers the rest of it will seem fairly logical!
Helen, seems I'm going to need it.
Post a Comment