Ready to hit the road! (ha!)

As of this morning, Darren and I are the proud owners of Qatari drivers' licenses. This will change our lives in no way, except that we've got one more piece of evidence for CRA that we've severed our ties with Canada and should no longer be considered residents for tax purposes. Oh, and if we needed to rent a car for some reason, now we can.

The whole event was whirlwind-ish. Our driver, Johnson, picked us up at 7am. By 7:35 we were at the moroor (traffic department), where he led us to a small concrete building. Inside there were a number of old school typewriters and a couple of typists. We gave a gentleman copies of our passport, Qatari ID, Canadian drivers' licenses, as well as a passport photo and 15 riyals and he handed us a couple of forms and a letter typed in Arabic.

With paperwork in hand, we followed Johnson to another building and up some stairs. It looked like an abandoned apartment building. There a lady entered our information into a computer and sent us to our eye tests - me in the ladies' room, and Darren in the gentlemen's. The test consisted of holding a piece of paper over each eye and reading a chart. Apparently we each passed because then we were off to another building to get the licenses.

When we arrived at this building we found nothing. That's right - it was a long, empty room. There were men at work on the outside of the building, so we figured the offices had been moved for construction. It wasn't difficult for Johnson to find the right building where we took a number (after some persistence; the lady at reception wanted to send us to a building in the centre of the city) and gave all our paperwork to a veiled woman. After about 10 minutes, we left 500 riyals poorer but 2 licenses richer.

This process could have been nightmarish if we hadn't brought along our good friend and driver Johnson. He's been here for over 20 years and has taken tons of people to get various documentation. He didn't want to name a price for his services so we just guessed at what would be fair. I hope he realizes how much we appreciates his guidance this morning!