Brat1

Thanks guys.

Went to the Department of Motor Vehicles yesterday, after getting the letter from the SSA and we have been booked in to a driving school for 4 hours on Saturday and 4 hours on Sunday as we have to do that before we sit our written and practical exam. OMG - 20 years of driving and this is really nerve wracking. Apparently if we were from spain, france etc we wouldn't have to do this but because we're from the UK and drive on the other side of the road, both of us have to sit a written and practical driving test. Oh the joys!!!!

SarahG

If it is anything like the test I did here in Indiana it will be a piece of cake. You just drive round the block and do a parallel park. You have to show awareness of the change of speed in school zones and stop signs. I was out for just under 10 minutes.

Nutmegger

As SarahG says, it will be a piece of cake. Sorry you have to waste all that time in school, but you are going to sail through the test. Just remember never to pass a yellow school bus, from either direction, and you'll have a CT license in no time!

Brat1

OMG!!! I'm too used to driving and reversing a hearse in the UK!!! Will I be able to parallel park a car in the US????

Nutmegger

Yes, with no problems -- sounds as if you are way ahead of the game -- most people here have no clue how to parallel park, and they all have licenses!

Brat1

The only thing is - my navigational skills are diabolical. It will take me weeks to navigate from our home to the schools!!!! And that's with a sat nav!!!

Nutmegger

Now I have a great mental image of you getting lost with the hearse . . . .

Brat1

Oh it's only happened once in my 13 year career - and it wasn't entirely my fault - I'll blame the Funeral Director on the day (who's navigation is worse than mine I have to say), when we ended up in a Shopping Centre instead of a back road to the Cemetery. In my defence - it was well out of our normal area and the Priest and family fortunately saw the funny side of it on such a solemn occasion - Oh I could write a book!!!!

Nutmegger

LOL! That has really brightened my morning -- I bet you have some great stories to tell!

By the way, let me know if you want to know about the local state parks where you can take your rotty -- I can give you the info to feed into the sat nav!!!

Brat1

That would be great. We have 1.98 acres here for him to run around in but most of the back yard is trees. Any info that would help us settle in would be great. You can pm me this if you would prefer. Thanks for your help.

Nutmegger

PM coming up.

tonrob

Don't worry. While I didn't do the CT test (I'm just over the border into MA) my practical driving test took all of 5 minutes. (I timed it - Mrs tonrob's took 4).

Simply drove around for 3 minutes before the examiner (a state trooper) said - literally - that if I could get him back to the test centre* without killing him I would pass.

* (edit) he may have actually said center...

tabskitten

hi there
we plan to move over toward the end of this year if we can secure hubby an IT job in states,.........
can you tell me about the dog bit?
we have a 13 month old terrier type- how long and how expensive?

Brat1

Not hard at all. We used a pet travel company but I know from a lot of replies on this forum, that you can do it a lot cheaper if you organise it yourself. He is obviously a much smaller dog than ours. It cost us just under 2,000 UK pounds, but that was including 3 weeks boarding at their centre which was due to us moving out of our uk home, not being able to move into our rental in CT etc so that was extra, but they did all the paperwork and it was pretty straightforward. Having said that, he has been playing up since he got here and has gone back to puppy mode which is a bit stressful, but we'll sort that out in a couple of weeks hopefully. Let me know if you need any further information.

CitySimon

I've got nothing to add to the proceeedings except for a "Welcome"