how i got my license

Everyone knows by now that i got my license a week ago. But let me tell you what actually happened on the day of my driving test.

So after 37 days of driving lessons (at 6 o'clock in the morning!), my instructor finally told me to take the exam on April 23rd - the test starts at 5:30 am.

So at 5:15 off I went to the driving school. It's a 15-minute walk - approximately one-kilometer from our house. But when I got to the test area, I discovered that I lost my driving course card. They wouldn't allow me to take the test without the card. So i called my brother and asked him to search for it - maybe I left it in the dining table. But I'm pretty sure that I had it when I left the house. Five minutes later he called and he said he couldn't find it. I told him I'll retrace my steps - I probably dropped it somewhere. Sure enough, as I was walking back towards my house, I met two Nepalese employees of the driving school. They saw my card lying on the sidewalk. I rushed back to the test area and was only 15 minutes late.

The first test was identifying road signals. The policewoman only asked me five questions and gave me a passing mark.

The parking test consists of two parts: the first is the L-parking and the second one is the pocket parking.

To pass the L-parking you have to climb up a ramp, stop in the middle, continue going up the ramp (without sliding back). Once you reach the end of the ramp, you have to reverse. At the foot of the ramp, you have to turn your steering wheel to the right, reverse the car and once you're off the ramp, turn your steering wheel to the left (to make your wheels straight) and then reverse until you reach the pocket-parking area.

The pocket parking is what is known as the parallel parking. This is the hardest part of the driving test.

Anyway, I managed to go inside the parking spot without hitting the poles. As I was about to take the car out, the policewoman told me "Go outside." I was upset of course, when the police tells you to get out it means you failed the test. So I stepped out of the car and looked at the rear bumper. I did not touch the poles! So I asked the lady "Why, did I hit the poles? Did I fail?" Again she told me to go outside. By then it dawned on me that what she meant was "Take the car outside of the parking spot."

After taking the car out, she then told me to wait at the test area. I spent another hour waiting - not knowing whether I passed the parking test or not. Finally they called our names out - those who were called were asked to go sit in the bus that was waiting in the parking lot.

There were ten of us in the bus - 3 South Asians and the rest were Arabic ladies. I was the lone Filipina in the bus.

We had no idea where we were going and what we were supposed to do. We sat on the bus for 30 minutes and when the bus finally moved, we noticed that it was following a car. We drove around for 10 minutes and stopped when the car in front of us stopped. A student (a British lady) came of out of the car and went inside the bus. She then told the Arabic lady who was sitting on the first row "It's your turn." We finally realized that this was the road test - you have to drive around for 5 minutes (with the policeman sitting beside you) and that's it.

An hour later we were back at the driving school and they gave us the test results. It was all in Arabic of course and we had to ask the Arabic ladies what it meant. Imagine my surprise when she told me "you passed!"

So that's how I got my license. Now all I have to do is learn how to drive :-)