Registered California Resident!

I became a registered California resident a couple weeks ago.  You have no idea how big of an accomplishment that is and how hard it was to become one.  To steal a line form Modern Family, the Los Angeles DMV was my Vietnam, and I was in Vietnam.

I scheduled an appointment for the DMV (which is what you do in LA, I guess) for 10:40am on Friday morning.  Little did I know, this just meant that this appointment only gave you the right to stand in line (see pic below).  When I showed up, the line was nearly 40 people long and out the door.

In 30 minutes, I got to the front of the line which was a large room holding about an additional 200 people!  I tried to stay positive about this through telling myself that I live 3 blocks away from the beach and in an amazing place.  The tradeoff is that there are a ton of other people who live here.  But that didn't help, I was pretty frustrated.

Once at the front of the line, they told me that I needed to go back outside and register my car with the state of California and come back (albeit, to the front of the line, thank God) when I have the appropriate paperwork.  So I drove my car into another line to get it properly registered and recognized by the state of California and headed back inside to the front of the original line.

Once I had the appropriate paperwork, I received a number and had to wait in the room of 200 for my number to be called.  This is where having an appointment is important cause I only had to wait 15 minutes before I was called.  I registered my car and applied for a California license at this point.

Everything went smoothly until they asked for payment.  I had lost my debit card the night before (at this snobby, stupid bar that has really good food and beer but the service is poor and I could write a-whole-nother post about them) and didn't bring my check book.  Well, the state of California doesn't accept credit cards.

So, I had to drive back home to get my check book and the lady was nice enough to say when I got back I can just come right up to her and finish the payment.

Once I got back, I paid and received my new California license plates.  Now I had to go get my picture taken for my new license.  I waited in another line to get my picture taken and after I finished that I needed to take a driving test for new state drivers.  I had to wait in another line to get my test.  And then wait in a completely separate line to turn in my test (which I passed, I'm proud to say).

I received all the appropriate paperwork at around 2:45pm on Friday.  4 hours of hard work and I could officially say I was a California resident.  I haven't received my license in the mail, but I will say that the old Buick looks a little weird with the new plates.