What I Want For My Birthday

Last April my immigration lawyer explained that with my “Highly Skilled Migrant Status” I would be eligible for the “30% ruling,” which allows me to exclude 30% of my income from Dutch taxes AND allows me to exchange my Michigan driver’s license for a Dutch one. I was ecstatic, because I have heard horror stories from Americans trying to get European licenses. It is usually very hard and very expensive – most Americans cannot pass a European driving test. How do I know this? Because I watch Reality TV! Once I was watching a show in England about people trying to get their licenses (I know it sounds boring but it was gripping) and it showed a woman going for her driver’s test. The first thing the examiner asked her to do was check the brake fluid. Then he made her change a tire. Then she had to get in the wrong side of the car and drive on the wrong side of the road. Okay, that last part was just because the show was set in England, but check the brake fluid? “Blimey,” I exclaimed to the telly in an attempt to sound British, “I’m not exactly Mr. Goodwrench here.”

A friend in Spain has told me his license cost him over 1000 Euro in driving lessons, exams, and government forms. Not me. I’ve been imagining walking into the Dutch version of the Secretary of State’s office (we don’t have a DMV in Michigan), tossing them my Michigan license and them handing me a Dutch license along with a complimentary pair of tiny wooden shoes to hang from my rear view mirror. Oh foolish man. What previous experience have I had with anything here that would make me think this would be easy? First, I had to clear the immigration hurdles and get accepted as a Highly Skilled Migrant. That took six weeks, cost a few hundred Euro, and involved about twenty pages of documents - including things from the US affixed with apostilles, which had me visiting county courthouses in Ottawa and Ingham counties and going to the Secretary of State’s office every day the week before we left. Then we had to file for the 30% ruling. Another bunch of paperwork, more money, and another month, but yes, this was also granted at the beginning of September.

So I naively emailed my lawyer (and it is naïve to email your lawyer, because he bills you for 12 minutes for each email at 180 Euro an hour, or 36 Euro an email, or about $50 an email…Lawyer: Here is the information you need. Me: Thanks. Lawyer: You are welcome. Bill - $100…when oh when am I going to learn NOT to say thanks because it costs me $50 every time he says “you’re welcome.”) Where was I? Oh yeah, so I naively emailed my lawyer and asked “How do I exchange my driver’s license now that I have the 30% ruling?” I am still thinking I can go someplace and trade.

He gleefully writes back saying thanks for the chance to send you another $50 email and here are the steps you need to take. Basically, I have to go to the Stadswinkel ( which more or less is City Hall but translates literally as “city store”) and pay 20 Euro to get a form to mail to the Central Bureau Rijvaardigheidbewijzen (any Central Reformed people who read this – you can start thanking God I am not doing the spelling bee this year because I have a whole lot of new words that would make you cringe). The CBR people are in charge of driver’s licenses. After completing their form I have to mail it back to them, then they send it to the RDW (Rijksdienst voor het Wegverkeer, good but not quite as exciting as Rijvaardigheidbewijzen) who are the people in charge of the roads. After approval by the CBR and RDW then I take the forms they send me along with a passport photo (see blog entry called “The Worst Picture of Me Ever Taken”), 53 Euro, a copy of my 30% ruling AND my valid Michigan driver’s license and in a few weeks they will send me a new Dutch license in the mail.

Are you still with me? (The Dutch people who read this blog are thinking “What’s the big deal?” while the Americans are thinking “This is why I should never leave home.”) I get the first form from the CBR. For some reason they went ahead and made it in Dutch, but I can read enough of it to know I have a serious problem. It was a medical history questionnaire and it’s one of those forms where you are supposed to answer “no” to every question. You know the questions. Are you criminally insane? Do you have narcolepsy? Do you have an attention span so short that sitting through a traffic light is going to be a problem? But right there on number 8 I can see in Dutch it’s asking if I’ve ever had an operation of one of my eyes. Time for a moral dilemma. I don’t like to brag about it, but I am legally blind in my left eye. 26 years ago I had a detached retina and had eye surgery and the result is I can see out of my eye with glasses but without them I can’t see squat. I could lie and make my life easier (which is pretty much why people lie anyway) or I can tell the truth. I guess you know what I did. (Would I be writing about this if I’d gone ahead and lied?)

Did I mention it’s my birthday next Friday? I’m not saying this to entice you to send presents (not that’s there’s anything wrong with that), I’m saying this because – by some fluke of timing – my Michigan driver’s license expires this year on my birthday. I have to have a valid driver’s license to make this whole thing work. I didn’t think this was going to be a problem in June when I started working on it, but now it is September. I am starting to think God was looking the other way on this one and wondering if I might need to jump on a plane and go back to Michigan for a day to renew my license before next Friday.

So I fill out the form honestly and late Tuesday I receive a letter from the CBR telling me I need to see an eye doctor. What are the chances that that’s going to happen quickly? But miracle of miracles on Wednesday I call the Albert Schweitzer Ziekenhuis in Dordrecht to make an appointment with an eye doctor and they say I can come in at 8am on Thursday. So I go get my eyes examined by a Dutch eye doctor this morning and 45 Euro later he finds that I am blind in my left eye but with my glasses I can see fine and approves me to have a license for the next ten years. Hoping to speed this along, I get the idea of taking the form personally to the CBR in Rijswijk. We have to go to Rijswijk anyway, because Gretchen’s residency card has come in (mine took six weeks, hers took three months; mine is good for five years, hers is good for one year. “I love socialism,” he said sarcastically.) and that’s also the city where the immigration office is. We hop on the train after the exam and head to Rijswijk. I have dark glasses on, because my eyes are still dilated. We get Gretchen’s residency card (see blog entry “The Worst Picture of Me Ever Taken” for further explanation. I promised Gretchen I would not post this picture on the internet. I did not promise I would not comment on it. Simply stated she looks like Bela Lugosi after a night out on the town. I try calling her “Stella Lugosi” but she fails to see the humor.) Then we head around the corner to the CBR offices. I stumble a few times on some curbs because the sun is shining very brightly and my pupils are still dilated. Gretchen takes my hand and begins to lead me on, and I am led by the hand wearing dark glasses into the office where I want to get a driver’s license.

But it goes well there. The receptionist promises to call another woman “just after her lunch break” on my behalf…but then she changes her mind and actually picks up the phone and makes the call! And the other woman says “send his form up” so she puts it into a vacuum tube and off it goes. The first woman says “she’ll try to put it into the system today or tomorrow” and gives me a phone number to call next week to see if they’ve acted on it. I might actually hear something before next Friday!

We go home and I have another idea. I decide to see if I can contact the Secretary of State’s office in Michigan and ask for help. I see on the web site where I can send Terry Lynn Land an email, and I do so. But I notice that really these emails are for telling Terry Lynn Land your concerns about the Secretary of State’s office. And then on the side of the page I see “Out-of-State Services” and find a place where I can call to request an extension on my driver’s license for six months! I call. I explain my situation to a woman in Lansing. She says, “Well, I can’t help you if you don’t live in Michigan.” Apparently I misunderstood the nature of “Out-of-State Services.” I try to sound desperate. I make sure she understands it’s not like I’m on vacation in Toledo. She begins to soften. She asks if I have any utility bills in my name in Michigan. Sure I do. I have bills on two continents. She starts to tell me how I am going to have to send these to her when she suddenly cracks and says, “Oh, what the heck, I’m just going to do it for you. I am going to give you six months but after that we are not going to do anything more for you. Make sure those people give you a license in the next six months.” Don’t you love Midwesterners? So, I have a six month extension of my license on the way, and I might not even need it, because maybe, just maybe, the CBR is going to come through and I can get to City Hall by next Friday with all the documents I need.

Take that, Peter Stuyvesant!