Driver's License

Yesterday Jeremy and I went to DETRAN, which I suppose would be comparable to the DMV in the States, only much less organized. There is one location for the entire city of São Paulo, so you can imagine the lines and crowds. We checked the website a while back to see what the process would involve for me to get a driver's license here. Because I have a valid license from the States, it said I could just provide some documents and a translation of the US license to get one valid here. No problem.

So we arrive at DETRAN with what we needed, and hoped to get in and out as quickly as possible. On a side note, our friends John and Julie went through this process about a month ago, and it was fairly quick and easy for them, so we were expecting the same. That was our first mistake! It's rare to get the same answer twice from anything associated with the government...but don't get me started on that. We went to the window marked "foreigners" and told the lady what we wanted. She gave us a list of things we needed that included a medical and psychological test. Jeremy questioned her, and told her the website had stated something different, but she said they had changed things a few weeks ago.

We walked about six blocks to the medical clinic recommended to us and paid to take a medical test. It included checking my blood pressure, listening to my heartbeat, bending my knees (go figure?), and taking a vision test which consisted of reading four letters and identifying the color of a red dot and a green dot. Then we paid to take the psychological test. This was very interesting. I'm not sure if they were checking to see if I was crazy or trying to make me crazy! First the lady told me to draw lines, similar to tally marks until she said to stop. She did this several times. Then she did it again, only told me to start and then left the room! I felt a little weird sitting in the office drawing lines and lines of tally marks. Then she took me to another room and gave me a page with three arrows on the top of it. One was black, one white, and one with a dot each pointing different ways. The rest of the page was full of these types of arrows, but going all different directions. I had to mark the ones that were identical to the examples at the top.  Then she gave be a book of puzzles where you had to find the pattern and figure out which of the six options was correct. Then to top it all off, she gave me three blank pieces of paper and told me to draw a tree on one, a house on one, and a person on one. I was beginning to wonder if I was applying for a driver's license or kindergarten!

Luckily, I passed all the exams, and in a week I am supposed to return to pick up my driver's license (I say with fingers crossed). After we left, I realized that this must be why traffic is so crazy here. They didn't teach any rules of the road, or make sure I could read signs. I did have to identify red and green, but they didn't say what they signify. Of course, I know...but I'm not sure everyone does!