Yesterday, I attempted again to obtain CA driver's license. And this time, finally, I managed. But not without problems of course :)
This time around I decided to use Marta's (a friend from the lab) car, as other girl from my lab had already used her car for the same purpose and she had had no problems with it. Based on that, I assumed that Marta's car fulfills all the requirements that DMV has towards the vehicle.
But with all my luck, there was a problem with the car and I was almost sure that because of it I would be send home again without a license. When one of the examiners was doing the "safety inspection" of the car, she noticed that the back stop light at the passenger's side did not work... When she told me that, my heart stopped, and in my mind's eyes I already saw myself going through the ordeal of making another appointment for the exam... Luckily, the woman was nice enough to suggest that I go and fix the light and come back for the exam later that same day. I immediately drove to the nearest gas station and found somebody who replaced the light bulb for me. 20 minutes later I was back in the line waiting for the exam.
The exam itself went very well and I was very happy with its outcome. Not only I did not make a single mistake, but also after we were back at the DMV office, my examiner repeated at least three times that I am a very good driver :) Maybe that does not mean so much from the mouth of somebody who has to deal all the time with the beginning drivers, but still it made me very happy and at least it partly compensated for my previous misfortunes with the exam.
Bonus story:
Earlier that same morning, when I arrived at the DMV office, something ironically funny happened to me. I was driving around their parking lot looking for a free parking space when I finally spotted a car about to pull out and free one of the spots. I stopped, switched on my indicator and patiently waited for the car to pull out. In meantime, another car appeared from the opposite direction blocking the exit way of the car whose spot I was planning on taking. There would be nothing wrong with that, if the other car had not attempt to enter the parking lot in the OPPOSITE direction to the traffic signs and if that wouldn't have led to blocking of 5 cars (my car, the car that wanted to leave the parking space and two other cars that wanted to drive out of the parking lot following the traffic rules). Somehow I am still able to understand that somebody might make mistake like this and turn into the wrong traffic lane, but I have very little understanding (and patience) for people who do something like this, see that they block several other cars, but just decide to do nothing and wait for others to solve the situation. So I think to myself "who is the idiot driving this car?" and I start to stare through the car's window to see who is causing all that mess. And now, surprise, surprise (here the irony comes), who do I see? The driver is my friend Ania, with whom I initially planned to travel for the past two weeks when also my friend Agnieszka was visiting. About a month ago, I had decided not to travel with Ania anymore as a series of very peculiar events (that I might describe here later on) made me question her intelligence and/or sanity. Well, she did prove me wrong again, didn't she? ;)