Look what came in the mail today - Rick's French driver's license! Well, no, this isn't the license - there would be too much info to black out for that, but this is part of the letter that came with it :-)
His timeline (just to give you an idea of how things work here):
- late October, submitted the request for an exchange of his Florida license for a French license. This included a translated copy of the Florida license, a bunch of other official documents, and... Rick added a letter, in French, explaining his many years of licensed driving. The new rules meant he had to mail it (registered letter, of course)
- late March (yep, 5 months of complete and total silence), Rick gets an email (!!!), asking a few questions about his original license (aka, his very first one). Several emails later, they want some kind of proof that he lived in that state when he got his original license! If you are American, you very likely got your license as a teenager - how in the world do you find a proof of address for that age (and a few decades ago)? More, how do you find proof that is acceptable to the French administrative body (they like bills and rental contracts)? Well, some thinking, spurred on by desperation, served him well - he contacted his high school, and asked for his transcripts! It took a couple of days, but they got them off the microfilm and emailed them :-) Rick sent them on (with a little bit of an explanation) to the driver's license fellow. And he held his breath...
- first week of April, Rick's récépissé came in the mail! This basically said that he was approved, assuming that the real, to-be-exchanged license matched the copy he had sent them. Also, now was the time to mail the real one (registered post again, of course). The récépissé and copy of his license would let him drive until the new license came. BUT!!! It seems that this would only be valid in France (according to many people on the interwebs, but so far not supported by anything official). Not knowing how long the card could take, we started worrying about our vacation plans...
- end of May, he got an email saying that his driver's license was getting printed, and that it would come by post, signature required. By this time, all sorts of people were giving an expected timeframe of 6 months to a year to get your license. The printing alone can take several weeks.
- June 8, today, the postman rang!
And now Rick can drive! Me? I'm still waiting...
~~~
Related posts:
http://slowtravelin.blogspot.com/2017/10/french-drivers-license.html
http://slowtravelin.blogspot.com/2018/03/drivers-license-update.html
~~~
Updated to hopefully remove confusion about an "original" license :-\
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment