One step closer to getting behind the wheel

Much to my readership’s chagrin (hi Dad!), I have once again been absent from the face of this blog for all too long. And while I’m currently also drafting a post about my two-and-a-half week August trip to the US, as well as my forgotten aliyah-versary, what better way to jump back into the blog but with a dose of good ole Israeli bureaucracy.

On June 30 (I think that was the date), I headed down to Misrad HaRishui (read: Motor Vehicles), all my trusty documents in hand thanks to the very helpful guide on Nefesh B’Nefesh’s website to take part in what I thought would be a relatively simple process. Turns out, however, that because my physician was honest and properly noted a very insignificant medication I’ve taken for quite some time, my “tofes yarok” (the “green form” that goes from eye exam to physician to Motor Vehicles and contains your lifetime medical history) needed a stamp – or not – from the office’s head doctor, who would neither examine me nor speak to me.

Makes perfect sense.

Here we go, I thought, I won’t be driving in this country for years – even though in the US, I have been doing so for 10. And doing so quite well, my dad might agree.

No, a woman named Rachel whose voice echoed of 57 years worth of cigarettes told me, you will receive an answer by telephone in one month or less.

Slightly promising, I decided, although Rachel would give me neither her last name nor any mode of contacting her.

A month passed, and I heard nothing, naturally. I went to the US for two-and-a-half weeks. I got back. Ravid and I moved into a new apartment. A few weeks went by. And finally, this morning, I hauled my ass down to the Talpiyot neighborhood – and believe me, it’s an hour-long bus ride each way haul – to the venerable Misrad HaRishui.

Instantly recognizing Rachel in the back-room, I managed to get up to her pretty quickly, and lo and behold, I found out that I had been approved. Not only had I been approved, but I had been approved on, ladies and gentlemen, July 10. Needless to say there was no phone call to that effect, though Rachel did manage to yell at me for not having received their non-existent call and non-existent message, which she promised came through.

Happy to have my approval, however, and unsuccessful at displaying my wrath to Rachel, I moved to the larger waiting room where you must bring said “green form” to another counter where you can submit that form in exchange for another, which gives you the ability to take the two driving lessons and driving exam necessary to convert your foreign license.

A nice man next to me even handed me an extra waiting number (every Israeli government office has those triangular shaped number tickets from New Jersey delis circa 1987), so I moved down from #562 to #539.

But when I got to my destination – a pleasant woman in her 60s – I was asked, “Can I have your teudat oleh (immigration certificate, essentially)?”

Too bad that was still in my desk drawer.