Late January 2025 I finally got mi carnet de conducir, or the driving license. The process felt endless nightmare for an immigrant without prior driving experience nor a good understanding of language. It would be much easier if I knew how to drive before legalizing this knowledge here in Spain, but alas: when I got an offer and moved to Barcelona I automatically dropped out of the driving school in Moscow where I'd barely finished the polygon practice.
Luckily I was not in a situation where I would need a driving license ASAP, because looks like any practical timing of getting one in this part of Europe is barely possible when starting from zero.
^proud me at the day of the final exam posing proudly
I started learning the theory during covid pandemic, almost out of boredom, via an app that looks like Duolingo but for wannabe drivers in Spain. The theory exam - held in the same street I used to live at that time - I've passed after a 3rd attempt. That was quite annoying, given the nature of questions in those kinds of exams*, but it was an easy part.
The driving practice involves a lot of... waiting. Waiting in the internal turn list of a school to be assigned an instructor. Waiting for your free turn for an exam application (that only a school can manage for you in reasonable time). Waiting for the exam itself. Sometimes more than once - if the union of Licensed Driving Exam Professors decides to hold a strike, nothing can stop them. Because there are very few numbers of these professionals, and they have a union.
Add up all the time one needs to actually learn how to drive (took me around ~40 raw hours in total) plus all the attempts to pass... and you might find yourself in the same situation that I did: when I had to pass a theory exam again because the previous one had expired!
The most annoying in my story was the bureaucratic error of the DGT that cost me more than 4 months waiting in vain. For something that should've been done - and had been done eventually - in one click. But in this business one is tied to a driving school, and they don't give you full info. Neither do they give it to you on time.
As I'm writing this, I look up at my first intercom message date within the school app. It says 212 weeks ago. 4 years. Jeez, I'm glad it's over.
As a cherry on a pie - as if DGT could not make stupid mistakes - the birthplace on my driving license says I was born in Belarus. I wasn't. The miDGT application surprisingly lacks that point of information, it appears only on a physical card. That's why I found the mistake only the day it arrived in my mailbox.
Gonna do absolutely completely nothing about it.
My top favorite question sounds like "Why is the speed limit within a city set to 50kmh?". The correct answer is: "Because the pedestrians should be respected equally with the drivers." It is as good as another two variants. One doesn't know the rules. One knows the answers.