I passed my Norwegian drivers license exam last week, so now I am an officially licensed Norwegian driver. I was previously a somewhat officially licensed US driver, but I had one year to trade in my U.S. license for the Norwegian one. They trust the U.S. enough that I didn't have to take any of the driving lessons or the written exam. Even so it still cost me about $400 to get the license. My friends from India will have to start from scratch to get a license here and that will cost them something around $2500 - $3000. Ouch. I had to rent a special car that had brake pedals on both sides so the examiner can make a panic stop if you're about to run somebody over. The car was actually a pretty nice BMW although it was completely gutless with a 1.6l 4-cylinder. I had to take the test in the dark which wasn't so great but by pure luck I had just driven on the exact road that he tested me on only a few days earlier, so I knew where the turns and roundabouts were at. The examiner was a 25 year old Norwegian guy, and he was pretty easy on me. I didn't do anything stupid and after we finished driving for 40 minutes or so he said "well it's nice to take the exam with someone who actually knows how to drive.." I didn't tell him that I've had a license since before he was born, that made me feel too old :)
I felt kind of bad when I left and I could see the old Oregon license laying on the clerk's desk. She probably chucked it out after I left, maybe I should have gone dumpster diving that night to get it back.
The days here are getting really short now - I was at the gym this morning and the sun didn't peek over the hills east of the ciy until 10:40am. At least there are only 3 more weeks until the winter solstice!
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