After six months, it’s a requirement that you trade in your U.S. drivers license for a Danish drivers license. So I figured I’d get started sooner rather than later on that process because when you live in the city of Copenhagen it takes longer than if you lived out in the countryside.
I went to the city’s offices for citizens, “Borgerservice,” which is where you do this kind of thing here – no separate department of motor vehicles and no soulless bureaucrats despondent that they’ve spent their working lives in a cinder-block bunker of an office decorated in early ancient leftovers from some other better place to work.
The first time I went to “Borgerservice” to get this done – immediately after having my doctor examine me to make sure I am capable of driving – required – and certifying that fact on a special document that is sealed in an envelope by the doctor only to be opened by “Borgerservices,” which is not covered under normal care – 500 kroner please. I discover that appointments for turning in your license were in short supply. So I made an appointment last week for today. I read or thought I had read what I needed to bring with me to do what seems should be a simple process.
The kiosk said you need the doctor’s paperwork, your drivers license, passport, and residence card. I assumed my CPR card was my residence card. Wrong, kemosabe. In Denmark, this cashless, app-centric electronic world where you can do anything with your phone or your computer, except prove that you have a residency permit.
Forget the fact that I have a CPR card, a NemID, have properly registered with the government, which they could easily look up – the mobile phone provider did as did DanskeBank, yet no. The person at Borgerservice needs to see the piece of paper, a letter from the Statsforvaltningen, because, because that’s the way things are done. She hands me back my stuff and says you have to make another appointment, which you can do at the electronic kiosk in the lobby.
Okay. I guess that the third visit will be the charm.
I discover, in the process of writing this, upon reviewing Borgerservice’s website, that I am also running out of time. You need to turn in your license within 90 days of arriving or the city won’t issue a temporary license. That wouldn’t be much of an issue but based on the information from my fellow Americans in Denmark it can take Copenhagen four to six months to issue you a permanent license.
I will update this next week when I go once again to Borgerservice this time before my doctor’s visit rather than after. At least I will be traveling there in daylight, even if daylight is rather fleeting this time of year.
