Achievement Unlocked - Portuguese DMV
My epic 9-month journey to legality
Hello everyone!
It’s still summer here, with daily temps in the 23-30ºC (74-86ºF) range, and surprisingly little wind. So we’ve been hitting the beach and soaking up every bit of sun we can. Well… in between all the adulting we’re doing, that is.
Here’s what happened last week:
Bureaucracy achievement unlocked - DMV
Scrambling to pick finishes
Let’s drive in!
Bureaucracy achievement unlocked - DMV
I can finally drive a car in Portugal!
Exchanging my USDL for a Portuguese one should have been simple and straightforward. Bureaucracy says otherwise.
The current law here allows temporary residents (like me) to use my USDL until it expires or I turn 60. After that, I would have to apply for a new Portuguese license, which could involve driving school. Like, the kind of driving school where I have to get in a student car and practice driving with an instructor, which can take 6 months or longer.
No thanks.
Or I can exchange it for a Portuguese license, which involves a few key steps:
Get a certified, apostilled copy of my driving record from my home state
Pass a simple medical test
Submit the documentation to the IMT (Portuguese DMV)
Show up in person to turn over my old USDL
Wait for them to mail me my new PTDL
We got certified and apostilled driving records before we moved last year, and I started the exchange process in January. It only took a few weeks until I got my new license (contrary to the horror stories I’d read in local expat groups). It felt like winning the bureaucracy lottery.
A couple of months later, I tried to use my shiny new Carta de Conduçao to rent a car in Greece. The rental agent took one look at it and said “This is only good for motorcycles.”
Lo and behold, he was right. EU driver’s licenses can be for many different classes of vehicles, and mine was only for two-wheeled motorcycles!
When I got back to Porto, I immediately began a months-long, multi-visit process with the IMT to get them to rectify the issue. Every appointment took multiple hours and happened entirely in Portuguese.
The problem? My Washington DL had a motorcycle endorsement on it, and the endorsement was “restricted to two-wheeled motorcycles.” Hence the confusion.
Fortunately, my Português is getting almost as strong as my tenacity for dealing with bureaucrats. I finally brought them my old Oregon DL, which clearly states it’s for more than just motorcycles. That was the kicker. The guy told me not to worry, he’d just check with his boss and I’d be getting an email soon.
That was in June.
I went back to the US in late July and returned to Porto in September resigned to the fact that I would have to continue my crusade with the IMT.
To my surprise, I found that they had attempted to deliver my new license while I was away! I just had to go to the IMT to pick it up. Which means setting a new appointment, waiting a week and a half, and spending an hour at the IMT… just to grab my returned mail.
Adulting is so fun sometimes.
Scrambling to pick finishes
Priority number one this week was to pick some critical finishes for our new apartment remodel because WORK IS ACTUALLY STARTING SOON!
Sorry for shouting, but we’re pretty excited. I mean… it’s only been a year and a half since we bought our place, and the hammers are finally going to start swinging.
So we needed to make some big, aesthetic, final decisions in only one week. For a variety of reasons, we couldn’t finalize them before our US trip.
Hilary is in the driver’s seat on this remodel. She has taken it on as her new full-time job. So she spent the whole week going from showroom to showroom negotiating a language barrier and a completely different construction system to narrow down our options.
I spent the week sick, doing everything in my power to help with this process, which mostly involved researching toilets.
Hilary gets multiple gold stars for effort and a special mention for holding it together when I swooped in sideways with my own notions of what we should do with tile.
She has just about memorized the 24-page quote from the builder, as well as the architectural plans, so she’ll be ready when the work (allegedly) begins Oct 9th.
More updates soon!
What have you been up to?
This week’s music brings us back to a smooth Indie Soul/Funk sound, similar to the Two Another album I shared a while back. LEISURE’s songs have been in my rotation for a bit, and Won M. just pointed me to the full album, which is great.
Those apostles are a pain in the...
Glad you have a driver’s licence now. It is very time consuming and expensive to get all the required lessons in Europe. And they still drive dangerously and often drunk.
Good luck with the remodel. Excited to see the tiles up and ready. I am sure it will be very cool.