Driver's license woes in Holland

They say the bureaucracy here is difficult. Today I am inclined to agree... I just returned from my - wait, I lost count - fifth? sixth? trip to the local city offices to apply for a Dutch driver's license. By law, you must have one within six months of moving to the country. Fortunately, the people behind the counter at the office are very nice, and it pays to have a sense of humor about the whole thing. But, I am tempted to forgo the license. For fun, here's the chronology:

Pre-visit: Wait four months to get a residency permit, required to get a license.

Visit #1: I neglected to bring a 30 percent tax ruling document with me to the office - not sure why this is needed to drive a car.

Visit #2: Didn't bring a medical clearance form. I had sent in a medical clearance form to the authority that clears my medical record. What I didn't know is that you have to wait until they send you a form back, verifying that you are medically fit. But I hadn't yet received the form back from them to bring with me to the city office, and I did not know to wait for it. The clearance is a bit of a racket - you pay c. 20 euro for the form, which you fill out yourself and declare that you are medically fit to drive. Then you send it off to the government office that agrees with your declaration of fitness. How do they know? I think I will fill one out for my aging 17 year old cat and see what happens.

Visit #3: Medical form arrives! The government agrees with my self-proclaimed healthy status! Armed with my passport, U.S. driver's license (which needs to be surrendered), medical clearance form, residency permit, and photo, I'm ready for sure. The hitch: the computer at the city office says I do not have a residency permit - even though I have the official govt. issued residency permit in hand, this is not good enough. I am told to go to the immigration people and get them to check their computers. Meanwhile, I correspond with immigration and am told that yes, I am in the system.

Visit #4: 10:00 am on a Monday- office closed.

Visit #5: 2:10 pm on a Thursday - office closed.

Visit # 6: Armed with a print-out of an email from immigration saying that yes, I am in the computer, I am again denied. Still not showing up in the city computer. The very nice person at the city called immigration to verify (she didn't have to, thanks for that), and was told that I had not been entered into the computers at immigration. Which is now happening, I am told. I am told to wait 48 hours for the entry to take effect before I go back.

Now, it is after 6 months since I arrived and am not sure what my legal driving status is here. Lucky for me we don't have a car, and Tamara has her license so if we rent one we can be official. There are roadblocks here operated by the police, in which every car is stopped, you are breath-a-lized, your car is searched, and your papers checked.

When I left the city offices this time, I took the schedule of operating hours with me. Looks like I'll be needing that for future reference.