It has been over a week since I last wrote something on our website and I am currently wondering if something else happens last week, besides that what I wrote in as the subject of this post.. I can’t seem to recall it all at once… I might remember in a bit

Right, let me start at the Hawaiian driver license.. I went to the DMV today with Michelle, to do the roadtest for my driver license. The roadtest is basically the last test , just like in the Netherlands, that you have to take in order to receive your real license.

I had the appointment for the roadtest at 2.30pm (1.30am in Dutch time) and I was there ahead of schedule. The examiner chocked himself a bit when he called out my name (that seems to happen more often haha) and after I told him how to pronounce it, we walked towards the car to start the exam for the Hawaiian driver license.

You need your own car (or at least one from a friend or relative (rentals are only allowed under certain conditions)) to do the test, so they first check all papers and check if everything works ok, that means to see if the signal lights and brakelights work as they should, apparently anything else doesn’t really matter hehe. I went, as I told before, with the car of Michelle’s mother, quite a big Mercedes SUV. We did this because Michelle’s car (or actually ‘our’ car now that the registration and the insurance has now both our names) probably wouldn’t make the test since she has blinded windshields.

When everything was ok, we left the parkinglot and drove a bit around. I think the total test took about 20 minutes and I didn’t have to do much special things. The examiner said in the beginning he especially looks well at stopping at a stopsign or red light, the usage of signals and mirrors, and mainaining the maximum speed. I was surprised he told me all this since they don’t do this in the Netherlands at all, over there it is like you get in and they just tell you where to go.. I told the examiner this and he answered me that he basically wants everyone to have a good reason to pass the test haha, it sure looked like that

He took me in the vicinity of a school (reduced speeds), around stopsigns, right turns at a red light (this is allowed in the US unless stated different and holds the same judgement as a stopsign (we don’t have this in the Netherlands)), parallel parking (I could decide myself how to park and since there was enough space, I just drove forward into the parking haha.. the distance to the curb was ok and well within margins), and some other things.

I had no idea how I did and when we arrived back at the DMV, I decided to park back into the parking… something I did not have to do as I was free to park in any way as I liked it but I was like why not, it isn’t too hard and who knows it might help me. If it really helped is unknown to me but the car was at least parked really nice within all lines as it should be.

I asked the examiner after we parked if I could turn off the engine and he asked me to wait with it for a bit (I think because the airco might stop when you turn it off hehe) and he was writing something on a note, he gave me the note and told me that I should go to the first line and then could pay for my license. And then he said “congratulations, you have passed”.

You can imagine I am pretty happy now

This is also funny by the way, usually you need to turn in your Dutch driver license, or invalidate it. They asked me for my Dutch license, I even showed it to them, but nobody did anything with it.. with other words, I now have both my Dutch license as the Hawaiian driver license It is just as nice if you ask me as it eases up my life when I am in the Netherlands or in the US. I only have to keep in mind that I need to renew it every now and then.

Like I wrote in the beginning of this message, there are not much things in the past days that may have happened. Of course we went to town again and such but it would be getting a bit boring when I have to tell the same things over and over again haha. I can, however, that I got my ‘resident golf card’, a card which I can use to play golf with nice reduced prices (I am looking forward to do it again, I loved playing it while I was in China).

Also, my collection of plastic (the cards) is getting quite big now, as like all other people I am starting to get a big collection of membershipcards, shoppingcards, bankcards and go on haha. I am starting to become more naturalized this way haha.

We did, however, make a few photo’s from our trips to Honolulu, let me post a few so it doesn’t get too boring haha.

In the upcoming week I might have more to tell and have more pictures as one of the plans is to go the upcoming sunday to the palace (the building in the middle of the pictures above, the other two are taken from the former supreme court). And of course we have Michelle’s birthday a day later and a barbeque on wednesday and of course the cats who will be neutered in the upcoming week.