Probably the most convoluted and annoying Italian bureaucratic headache I’ve experienced so far was the process of obtaining my Italian drivers license, known as a patente di guida. I had heard what a nightmare it would be and I put it off for as long as I could, but eventually I had no choice if I wanted to avoid any hassles from the Italian highway police.
This is how I got myself into this situation. When I first arrived in Italy, I rented a car to get around. Because I was living in the Tuscan countryside, the need for a car was pertinent. As you can imagine, renting a car was a major expense that I needed to eliminate. So I investigated what other options might be available to me.
I was fine with the idea of buying a car until I found out all of the red tape involved. So I preferred finding a quicker and simpler alternative if it existed.
My first thought was to see if any of the major car rental agencies had more affordable long-term rates. They didn’t. I then searched the Internet for any smaller car agencies that would rent cars at an affordable rate. There weren’t any.
Next idea. I asked around to see if any dealerships had leasing programs. No, they did not. Car leasing is a concept either unknown or unwelcomed in Italy.
The search continued. A few people told me about a couple of ways of buying a car and avoiding the red tape by staying under the radar of the Italian authorities. One way was to give the money to buy a car to an Italian friend and have the car registered in his name. Although I didn’t know specifically the downsides of this scheme at the time, I instinctively had the suspicion that such a loosely defined and clandestine agreement could only lead to bigger problems with the Italian authorities later on, one less friend after the dust settled, and one less car in my possession. So I nixed that option.
The other scheme – a bit more legitimate – was to buy a car in another country and bring it back to Italy. But at the time, the people who told me about this method always had the same story: they knew of someone who had a friend who had a relative who got a car this way. Because I couldn’t track down the relative of the friend of someone, I couldn’t find anyone who had first-hand knowledge of the mechanics involved with making this car purchasing method happen.
Biting the Bullet
Having exhausted all of these other avenues, I came to the acceptance that I must bite the bullet and do what was necessary to properly own and drive a car in Italy. It works like this: a dealership will only sell you a car if you have car insurance. But before the insurance agent will sell you insurance, you must become a resident in Italy. But before you can become a resident in Italy, you must have a stay permit. But before you can apply for a stay permit, you must return to the United States and obtain a visa from either the Italian Embassy in Washingtion, DC, or one of its consulate offices – in my case, that was Houston.
So after I went back to the States and got my visa, then returned to Italy to get my stay permit, and then the official slip of paper showing that I applied for residency, I was equipped to walk into a car dealership and make a deal. Those who know me know my preference to BMW. It was a bit more than I could have spent on a Fiat, Lancer, or Alfa Romeo, but I wanted a make that I was familiar with and would be reliable. So I went to the BMW dealership in Siena in February 2002 and, to the sales manager’s delight, I ordered a 2002 330xi. He was also helpful in connecting me with a reputable insurance company.
Within a month, the car arrived from Germany, and I had my ride. It was a great sense of accomplishment when I finally got behind the wheel of that car. No more beat up rental cars. The rest of the year was a lot of fun traveling to the wine regions in Italy and France with that car. But as that year wore on, the reality of getting an Italian drivers license set in. The law in Italy requires that foreigners who drive in Italy must have an Italian drivers license by the end of their first year as a resident.
Get ready for some more Italian bureaucratic entertainment. . . .
Driving School Matriculation
The drivers license requirement is relatively easy for people already with licenses from other European Union nations and a few other countries that have certain reciprocity agreements with Italy. They simply apply for the license. The road signs and rules are basically the same in all European countries (with the exception, of course, that they drive on the left side of the road in the UK). Unfortunately, we drivers with American licenses do not have this luxury. We are required to sit for the driving exam – in Italian! But to be able to register for the exam, you must enroll in driving school – in Italian!
I signed up for driving school in early November 2002. My friend, Stefano, helped me find a school in which to enroll in Montevarchi, Autoscuola Gianni, a privately-owned operation owned and operated by Gianni and his wife Martina. Stefano went with me to register and introduce me to Gianni. Luckily, I brought all of the relevant documents to register, including the ones mentioned above. I recall having to pay around € 300 up front for attending classes, an eye exam, study materials and the administration of my paperwork with the relevant authorities.
It was a good thing that Stefano was with me to explain my situation because my Italian was still very minimal and he could explain things better to Gianni. It’s funny how situations like this make you realize the importance of learning a foreign language. It has been my perception (and I admit that we Americans do this too) that when you cannot speak the language, locals conclude that your skills and mental capabilities are limited as well. In this case, I sensed that Gianni was ready to assume that I did not know how to drive. Once he realized that I could, he asked Stefano if I could drive a car with manual transmission. Stefano assured him that I could. I’ve noticed that many Italians have the misconception that Americans are unfamiliar with manual transmission due to the fact that we have so many automatic cars.
So my hope was that Gianni understood that I was there just to prepare for passing the exam. What Gianni didn’t understand (nor did he apparently care to for that matter as you will see) was that I wanted to spend as little time as possible in the getting this done.
You’ve Got To Be Kidding Me
A few days later, I went to my first class. I had no idea what to expect. The school was a modest square four-room street-level office. The first room was the reception. The next room was a classroom with a large chart on one wall showing every Italian road sign. The third room contained a jacked up chassis and engine of a compact car. At this point, I began to wonder just how involved preparing for this exam was going to be. Finally, the fourth room was a rectangular-shaped dimly lit room, the sole source of light was a standing halogen lamp. Near one of the walls was a long table surrounded with chairs. The other walls were lined with more chairs. I sat down at one of the chairs along the far wall. Soon the room began to fill with other students and they sat in the chairs around the table. Then Martina walked in and she motioned me to sit at the table. Now, back then, my level of Italian was minimal. It shockingly dawned on me that somehow, if I was to pass the exam in Italian, I would have to improve my Italian immediately. It was becoming clear that I was not going to get through this with the minimal effort that I had hoped.
I squeezed into my seat across the table from Martina as she passed out several laminated sheets with road signs identical to the ones I saw two rooms ago. Everyone got quiet and Martina looked at the student next to her and pointed to one of the road signs on the sheet. The student said three or four sentences and Martina gave an approving response. Then she pointed to another sign and looked at the next student. The student said one sentence and Martina sternly said something disapprovingly. The student thought for a moment and then began speaking again. When he finished, Martina calmly nodded.
The pattern continued. Martina expected an explanation for each sign and she wasn’t skipping anybody. Baffled, I was trying to figure out how these students could have answers at the first class. Was I supposed to buy the study materials and study before the first class like I was supposed to have done before my first class in law school? That uneasy fear of being called on and the humiliation of not knowing the answer in my law school days had come back. This time it was worse because I was about to be humiliated in another language. In law school if you weren’t prepared for class, at least you had a chance of guessing the answer. But in Italian, I there was no chance for me. I was busted.
It was my turn. She pointed to one of the road signs on the sheet and I was helpless. I didn’t know what the sign meant, much less explain it in Italian. All I could say was “No lo so.” (I don’t know.) Martina said something to me and I couldn’t respond. Her tone suggested that “I don’t know” wasn’t an acceptable answer. Man! Was this Italian woman a law professor in a previous life? She looked confounded that I wouldn’t respond. Then one of the students said something to her. The only word I understood was “americano”. She nodded as if she now understood what was going on. She calmly stood up and left the room. That was unsettling. Everyone in the room was shooting looks at me and mumbling. I was imagining that something bad was about to happen. I feared that she would return with a couple of traffic police who would take me outside and shoot me.
She promptly returned with a booklet in her hands. It was a 78-page driving manual study guide for foreigners, but it was in Italian. Apparently, a certain driving school proprietor who I recently met didn’t tell his wife that I was starting the class that night and I needed to study the rules before before I could participate in class. So for the rest of the hour and a half class, I thumbed through the driving manual that I couldn’t read while Martina quizzed the more accomplished driving students.
After that experience, I was in no rush to go back to driving school. I was busy with other things so I blew off going the rest of the month. I also went home to Arkansas for the holidays. I took home my driving manual, but I didn’t look at it a single time while I was home.
You Have Got To Be Kidding Me!
I returned to Italy in late January. My attitude was that I would eventually get around to studying the manual and then go back to the classes. But Autoscuola Gianni did not give me any time to think it over. Twenty minutes after I arrived in my apartment from the airport, the telephone rang. It was Martina. She asked me if I would be ready to take the exam the following week. What! I guess she thought I was studying for the past two months. Severely jetlagged, I told her I wasn’t and she didn’t seem pleased about that. She told me that I better start coming to classes the next day.
I couldn’t put it off anymore. The following day I finally sat down at my desk with a pen and note pad, an Italian/English dictionary, and the 78-page manual. I had to translate the manual into English before I could study the rules. About half the manual was a list of the road signs with their descriptions. The next section was a few pages on the rules concerning driving on the toll roads, highways, and streets. Next were a few pages on the rules for different types of licenses and documents to be kept in the car. Then there was a section on obeying road markings, and the right of way in different traffic situations. The final section was a few pages on proper use of car lights, indicators and warning lights.
What a slow and grueling process translating is when you barely know the language. I was looking up practically every other word. Some words translated while easily, but many times I’d come across a word or phrase that took a few minutes to figure out how it was being used in the sentence. Very tedious work. Two hours flew by before I finished the first page. I just couldn’t believe this. I could not believe all of the time and effort I was going to have to put into just translating. All this time required – for studying for a driving exam! This became my major project for the next two weeks.
My next class was on a Monday night. I only had about ten pages translated by that afternoon. I called Gianni to tell him that I preferred to finish translating the whole book before coming to class again. He told me that I had to come to class. I could not see the purpose of that, particularly since I had to drive a half hour to and from Montevarchi from my apartment in Montebenichi and then sit in the classroom for an hour and a half clueless about what was being said. I thought my time would be better spent if I just stayed home and continued with the translating. But he insisted that I come to class.
This annoyed me, so I called an American friend of mine who I had just taken the exam. She explained to me about the whole game of getting through all this. First she told me that I had to go to the classes. By going to the classes, you learn all the little nuances that I would need to know for the exam. You learn what kinds of questions the examiner may ask and how much information you need to give for each answer. She also told me about what the exam would include. First of all, foreigners who already have a drivers license only have to take an oral exam instead of a lengthy written exam. That was very good to know. What she couldn’t guarantee was how many questions I would be asked. She explained that depended on the examiner. Some would ask as few as five questions. Others would ask as many as forty. She also told me that after passing the oral exam, I would be required to take a practical exam. She said that autoscuola was particularly important for this exam because the school instructors would tell you the things to do that we all sometimes neglect to do while driving, like always holding the steering wheel at ten and two o’clock, and always using the left and right indicators when turning, changing lanes, and even when you are making a three-point u-turn.
My American friend had gone to a different autoscuola in Montevarchi. There were about four all together in the town. She told me that she only had to go to class for about an hour each week. This really annoyed me because Gianni told me that I had to come four nights a week. Each class was an hour to an hour and a half. I telephoned Stefano to ask him why he enrolled me in the school that required the highest attendance. Stefano explained that it was the best one in town. Wow! Lucky me. I was in the Harvard of driving schools in Montevarchi. I couldn’t wait to find someone to crow about that.
I arrived to the school a few minutes before the class started and sat in one of the chairs along the wall. The other students arrived. I had my manual, legal pad, and dictionary. No one else was sitting near me so I had plenty of room to continue translating the manual. I just wanted to be left alone until I finished translating the manual and a little time to learn the rules both in English and Italian. Then I would be glad to participate in Martina’s Socratic method of teaching.
Martina didn’t see it that way. As soon as she sat at the table, she once again motioned me to sit at the table. I could not see the purpose of doing that. Twenty people crowded around the small table and I would have no room to comfortably continue what I was doing. I didn’t know enough Italian to make this argument to her so I moved to the table and just made the best of a bad situation. I did the best I could balancing all my study materials on my lap while I continued translating. My hope was that Martina would pick up on how uncomfortable I was working with so little room and let me retreat back to the chairs along the wall, but my frowns didn’t phase her a bit. She continued with her routine of going around the table grilling everyone on the road signs. She would even call on me even though I communicated to her the best I could that I wasn’t planning on answering anything until I finished translating the manual. A logical approach, wouldn’t you think? Apparently, Martina didn’t get this concept.
I Turned A Corner
This was how classes proceeded for the rest of that week and I was becoming angrier as each day passed. I hated all the time I had to spend translating, driving back and forth to Montevarchi, and then having to put up with Martina humiliating me during class. Even Stefano and his wife Isabella noticed how annoyed I was. Isabella even called Gianni on my behalf to explain to him how stressed out I was. She suggested that I be left alone while I finished translating the manual. Gianni agreed that this would be better, but still wanted me to attend classes every night.
I went back to the school the following night and Gianni must have said something to Martina. She was much more agreeable to my situation. I sat in the row of chairs against the wall and this time she didn’t command me to the table. I felt a lot of my tension release at that moment. Now I was able to get some work done. Martina went on with grilling the other students while I plowed my way through the manual. It was a pain still having to drive all the way into Montevarchi when I could have gotten more work done if I just stayed home. But I suppose I was lucky just to have Martina off my back for a while.
It took another full week to finish translating the whole manual. I had filled up three legal pads. I allowed myself a day of celebration having accomplished that long boring task before I started studying what I had translated. I was surprised to realize that studying the rules was not so bad. It was interesting to learn what the road signs meant, what the speed limits were, when you are required to use your headlights and brights, and who had the right of way in certain situations. Right turn at a red light is not allowed in Italy. I studied all of this for a few days and then went back to the manual to study the rules in Italian. I have to admit that as big a pain it was translating that manual, I did benefit from it. First, I now understood was the rules were saying, and second, I was beginning to remember the rules – in Italian. Also, my Italian in general improved.
After a weekend of studying the rules in both languages, I was finally ready to participate in class. I was really looking forward to showing Martina that I wasn’t an idiot. That next Monday night at the school, Martina shot me a curious look as she entered the room and saw me waiting with the rest of the class at the table. As she quizzed each person, I felt much calmer as my turn approached. I knew how to say the answer to the signs that the other students were assigned. When she got to me, she pointed to a sign that was a red circle and a white mid-section. In the middle of the circle were a black arrow pointing down and a red arrow pointing up. I answered, “Dare la precedenza nei sensi unici alternati. Dare la precedenza alle machine che vengono davanti.” Translation: “Give the right of way to the traffic in the other direction. Give the right of way to the cars that are coming forward.” After a few more rounds of quizzing, that night I redeemed myself. Martina and my fellow driving students were impressed. He wasn’t so dumb after all.
Martina made me come to the classes a few more nights before she was confident that I knew all the rules. Sometimes a few of us would arrive at these classes a little early. Some of my classmates were curious about me being the only American in the class and wanted to know a little about me. They saw that I could speak now so they were confident that they would get an answer out of me. I was curious about them too. It turned out that all the other students were either Albanian or Indian. For years, Albanians have been migrating to Italy in a lot of cases taking whatever job they could get. There were several Indians in the class because there were two Indian-owned companies in Montevarchi and the owners sent over their employees from India.
Exam Day
Gianni then scheduled my test date on a sunny, but chilly February Monday morning. I met Gianni at the school along with an Albanian named Jon and an Indian named Pri. Gianni then drove us down to Arezzo to the Italian equivalent of a DMV. We walked into the main waiting area that was painted pale yellow and was completely bare except for chairs lined along the walls. While the main room was quiet, I could hear faint voices projecting from the adjacent rooms. Jon, Pri, and I took a seat while Gianni walked off to find out where the examiners were. The three of us remained in our chairs for at least a half hour before anything seemed to happen. Gianni reappeared into the room to have a cigarette despite the fact that there were at least ten no-smoking signs on the walls. Then he disappeared into one of the adjacent rooms. A few moments later Gianni came back out into the waiting room with one of the DMV people.
While Gianni was appearing and disappearing, I became a little concerned when I saw other driving instructors showing up with their students. Soon the room was filled up. Since there didn’t seem to be any organization as to who arrived first, I was concerned that we would have a longer wait for our turns to take the exam. Watching these other groups arrive reminded me of when I was a teenager going off to tennis tournaments with my tennis coach and my friends. As we would arrive as a group to the tennis courts, I would size up the other groups that arrived. Like some of the coaches of the other groups, these other driving instructors had a cockiness about them. Jon must have been looking over these other groups as well because he leaned over and said to me that Gianni’s students have one of the best pass rates.
Soon it appeared that a couple of examiners were set up in two separate rooms across from us and students were soon called in. A few students did go before us. Each one seemed to be in the exam for anywhere between ten to twenty minutes. Some came out relieved, others came out overtly upset and complained to their instructors. Just like the tennis coaches, the instructors were trying to give some guidance and encouragement.
Finally it was our turn. Gianni appeared from one of the exam rooms and motioned Jon to come into the room. “In bocca di lupo,” Pri and I said to him and he responded, “Creppi lupo.” This is the Italian version of “Good luck.” and the response “Thank you.” He was only in there for about ten minutes. He came out of the room, gave us a calm, confident nod and motioned for me to go into the room.
This was it. All that time translating the manual, studying the rules in two languages, driving back and forth to Montevarchi and sitting in all those classes came to this moment. I was a little nervous, but there was no way I was going to flunk this exam. I knew all the rules. My main concern was whether I could remember how to explain them in Italian.
As the examiner filled out some preliminary forms, I noticed that Gianni had a bit of a concerned look on his face as though he really wanted me to pass this thing. It kind of reminded me of the change in attitude I noticed law professors make when they teach bar review classes. In law school, I felt that the professors took pleasure in making law school more difficult than it needed to be. However, in the bar review courses, the professors become your best friends and seemed to go out of their way to make sure that you were prepared for the bar exam since the pass rate would be a reflection on them. I think Gianni wanted to maintain his high pass rate that Jon was talking about.
Well, I didn’t disappoint Gianni. The examiner asked me ten questions and I nailed them. That was it. Done. What a relief. I walked out of the room and motioned Pri to go into the room. It was a huge relief to sit back out in the waiting room. I told Jon that I passed and he said he did too. Soon Pri walked out of the exam smiling. He passed too. Three for three, Gianni. Congratulations. As much of pain the previous several weeks were, you and Martina got me prepared for this exam. My thanks to you both.
Oh, But Not So Fast . . .
My high praise to Gianni might have remained there if it weren’t for the problems that revolved around the second part of the driving exam – the practical. This part involved a five-minute drive around Montevarchi to show the examiner that you could in fact drive. Gianni had me come to the school a few afternoons to practice running through the drill that the examiner was likely to test me on. We got into his Peugeot hatchback with the Scuola Guida sign on the back of the car and drove around Montevarchi. Gianni reminded me of things that I had to do for the practical: always use the indicator on turns, always hands at ten and two o’clock on the steering wheel, don’t even go slightly over the speed limit, always use the indicator on three point u-turns. Gianni made me come to the school at least three times to go through this drill. When he was confident that I was ready, he told me to come to the school the following afternoon for the practical.
I was so ready to be done with this. By this point, I felt the amount of time I put into this would have been enough to earn nine hours of college credit. I showed up at the school along with six Albanians. A woman with a brief case arrived. She was the examiner. Gianni apparently knew her well and their interaction indicated that they had done this several times. Gianni signaled two of the Albanians to get in his car with him and the examiner. They drove off while the rest of us sat around and waited our turns. Twenty minutes later, they returned and the Albanians got out of the car. They looked relieved as if they would be receiving their licenses shortly.
Gianni then signaled an Albanian girl and me to get into the car. He told the girl to get behind the wheel and I got in the back seat. Gianni was shotgun and the examiner was in the back with me. The girl presented her documents to the examiner and then drove where she was told. After driving for about half a mile, the examiner told her to parallel park in a space between two cars. I didn’t think she would have a problem since there was enough room to back a 1976 Cadillac Brougham into that spot. But evidently Gianni didn’t prepare the girl enough for this challenge. On her first attempt, she ended up two feet from the curb. The examiner told her to try again. She didn’t do any better on her second attempt. That time she ran over the curb. The examiner told her to forget it and drive on. She then came to a stop sign at an intersection and the examiner told her to turn left onto the two-lane road. A lot of traffic was coming in the other three directions. Frazzled from her previous mistake, she was overly anxious to make that turn. Instead of realizing that it was okay to sit there for several minutes if there was no let up in the traffic, she felt that she needed to move as soon as possible in order to redeem herself. The poor girl gunned the car onto the road and almost had a wreck. The examiner read my mind. She told the girl to pull over.
The girl was shocked. She could not believe that she was being dismissed without the green light on a license. The examiner told her that she would have to try again sometime later. The girl begged to be allowed to continue. The examiner said no. The girl began to cry, but the examiner was firm. Embarrassed, Gianni told her to get out of the car. Annoyed, I wanted her to get out of the car. I felt sorry for her, but I had to think about myself. She blew it. It was my turn. I didn’t feel like spending my whole afternoon on this nonsense. Get out of the car!
The girl left and I got into the driver seat. This was going to be a pierce of cake. I was going to have my drivers license within the next hour and this would be over. The examiner asked me for my documents. I gave her my passport and the receipt to show that I renewed my stay permit in January. Okay. Let’s go.
I looked over at Gianni and there was a problem. The examiner was not happy with the receipt for my stay permit.
“This only a receipt.”
“Well, that’s the receipt to show that I renewed it.”
“Well, this isn’t official. I need the original.”
“The original is not ready yet. And the receipt was official enough when I bought my car.”
“Well, you’ll have to wait for the original. I can’t let you take this exam without the official stay permit.”
An Italian bureaucratic roadblock. I was able to buy my car with a stay permit receipt, but it wasn’t good enough for this woman. Whatever. I told Gianni that I would call him when I received the original stay permit. I had other things to do, people.
More Fun With the Italian Bureaucracy
I renewed my stay permit back in late January at the police station in Montevarchi. When the clerk gave me the receipt, she told me that the original would be ready in a couple of months. It was now late March so I went to the police station to see if it was ready. I showed the clerk my receipt, she walked away from her desk to check through a thick notebook and came back to me nodding her head. It wasn’t ready yet. She told me to come back in a month. It was now late April so I went back to the police station. Same thing. It wasn’t ready. Come back in a month. Late May. It still wasn’t ready. Come back next week. I went back the next week. It still wasn’t ready. Come back next week. I was too annoyed to be bothered with coming back again next week just to be told the same thing again. So I didn’t go back until the middle of June. The clerk told me that it still wasn’t ready. Luckily, a police officer with some authority saw my frustrated expression and asked the clerk what was going on. He picked up the phone and talked to someone. He seemed to have gotten the information he was looking for. He told me that the original stay permit was ready but it was at the police station in Arezzo. He said I could either wait until the permit was delivered from Arezzo in a couple of days or I could go down to Arezzo that afternoon and pick it up myself. I chose the latter. After such a delay in dealing with the Montevarchi, I was surprised to find the original ready when I arrived at the police station in Arezzo.
I immediately called Gianni to let him know that I received the original stay permit and I was ready to take the practical. Not so fast said Gianni. When I signed up for driving school back in November, I was given a drivers permit that was valid for six months. Since it had just expired, Gianni had to apply to the DMV to get me a new drivers permit. Another three weeks went by before Gianni received my new permit. He called me in early July to tell me that he had my permit and that I should practice the driving route a couple of more times just to refresh my memory. I really didn’t want to, but I agreed to do so. After those two practice runs, Gianni told me to come back the following day to take the practical.
Gianni also gave me some news that I was not happy about. Gianni asked me if I knew about the news driving laws. I told him that I heard about them. Beginning on July 1 all Italian drivers were given 20 points. For any violation, you would be docked a certain number of points depending on the violation. For instance, if you received a speeding ticket for going 20km/h over the speed limit, you would lose five points. After a five-year period, your points would go back up to 20. If you lost all your points during the period, your license would be confiscated and you had to go back to driving school. Fair enough, I believed I was a sufficiently careful driver that I would not lose more than 20 points over five years. However, Gianni informed me that all drivers who received a license for the first time after July 1 would be subjected to double penalties for the first three years from the issuance of their license. So if I just got two speeding tickets, boom, I’m back in driving school. I could not believe I was hearing this and I let Gianni know how ridiculous this rule was. I asked him whether the fact that I had been driving with an American license for twenty-two years made any difference. He said there were no exceptions.
I was particularly nervous about this because the DMV had just installed speed gun machines throughout Italy. Before the new law went into effect, I hardly ever paid attention to these machines. I racked up at least five tickets by the spring of 2003. I had to start watching out for these ugly green menaces.
Practically Reaching The Limits Of My Patience
The next afternoon I arrived at the school and saw six Albanians were also there to take the practical. It was a hot day and at least an hour passed before the examiner appeared. It was a different examiner this time, a gruff and stocky man. As soon as he arrived, he and Gianni drove off to have a coffee while the seven of us continued to wait in the hot sun. I was becoming more annoyed with Gianni at this point. When they returned, Gianni started calling students to get in the car. I was the next to last. I could not believe Gianni was doing this to me. Finally, my turn came about an hour later.
I got into the car and strangely I found myself nervous this time, probably because I was more annoyed than I ever was throughout this saga. I wanted this to be the end of it. I didn’t want to come to that damn school again. Luckily, I passed the practical despite Gruffy’s snotty attitude. At one point where the road forked I went to the left because that’s what Gianni usually made me do whenever we came to this fork. Gruffy asked me why I went left. I told him that Gianni usually made me go this way. Gruffy explained that if he didn’t say anything, then I should assume that I should go right. Because this weasel held the power of my finally receiving this stupid license, I stopped myself from making a sarcastic response. But I shot a nasty look at Gianni. I finished the course and Gruffy gave me my license.
When he gave me the license, he told me that I had to sign the back of it with a felt pen. Gianni said Martina would be in the office in a few minutes and she would give me a felt pen to sign it. He added that I could come back tomorrow if I didn’t want to wait for her. NO! I’ll wait for her and get this done today. Gianni got my message that I didn’t care to see him again for a long time. Sensing this, told me that I would need to pay Martina the balance of my driving school fees. Balance? Oh yes, Gianni told me that I still owed another € 230. The only thing that stopped me from being outraged about not being told this before was the fact that I had heard in other European countries the fees were around € 500. I just didn’t understand why he didn’t take all of the fees up front.
I took my license, went to the office to find Martina, signed my license with a felt pen and paid her the balance. Then I politely said goodbye. What a process. It took eight months to walk away from that school with my drivers license.
Epilogue
It’s now been a year and a half since that July. So far, I’ve lost six points. I lost them because one day in the fall of 2003, I drove down a road that was suddenly changed into a road for authorized vehicles only. Well, my luck, on this particular day there was a pinhead DMV guy standing around taking down license plates. Three months later I received the ticket in the mail. Normally this is only a 3-point infraction, but it was double points for me. So far, no speeding tickets. I just need to be extra careful for another year and a half.
My trusty travel agent Roberta works just around the corner from Autoscuola Gianni so I often walk past the school. For now, I’m glad that I don’t have to attend it anymore. But, if I find myself at zero points anytime within the next year and a half and my license is confiscated from me, I’m marching back to Autoscuola Gianni and demanding that he and Martina get me through the process in a much, much shorter period than the last experience. Hopefully, that will not be a story you’ll be hearing about.