Exchange / renewal of European driver's license
We both have a driver's license and where my boyfriend's license expired during our time in Hungary, he already had it renewed and exchanged there, mine will expire next month. My license is not something that I hold in my hands often, at least not during the past year or so as we didn't have a car of our own anymore. I almost forgot that I remember noticing some months ago that it's close to the expiration date. Thankfully, I remembered it a few weeks ago and went searching for instructions on how to exchange it for a Spanish license.
In Hungary it was a simple process
My boyfriend needed to go to the doctor for a medical check-up and pay for it, then he needed to go to the government office and fill in a form, sign it and pay the fees, within a few weeks the new license was ready. Living in the capital has it's downsides but when it comes to anything regarding official paperwork, it's a blessing! I remember realizing this in Budapest several times. I also remember that we heard that you need to go to Madrid for a passport renewal in Spain, that's only a 5 1/2 hours drive, ugh! Or we could go to Barcelona, which is even more than 7 hours driving, not ideal! So although I'm very happy not to live in Budapest anymore, I will probably hate the moment when I have to spend that much time and money to get to the main capital to get a new passport.
Drivers license is slightly different
Thankfully, for this process, we can go to the big city half an hour from us and fill in a form, bring a medical report and pay fees to exchange the driver's license. The thing is, it was not clear if it was offered in our area to get this done in just a few steps by specially assigned companies at first. I turns out that it was not the case, unless I was willing to pay 4x as much as the usual fees. I'll take the headache this time, lol. Another thing was that it was not clear until Friday when I went to get the medical report, what the further process was exactly. Thankfully, the doctor was very helpful even though she did not Speak English, I had the translator app to assist me where needed.
Government system failures
I remember this from before we moved to Budapest as well, we had quite some issues using anything government and internet related here in Spain and it was such a blessing moving to Budapest with a much better online infrastructure, so was advertised. It was the case for many things, but not all. Coming back to Spain after 4,5 years quickly threw us back in time in terms of many websites. I mean, you should not expect many businesses to have a website here and if they do, expect it to be updated 5 years ago. They probably had someone creating the site and then never looked at it again, same goes for most schools so I've learned while browsing for the right one for our daughter. But when it comes to making an appointment for something with a tight deadline and something you don't want to mess up, like the exchange of driver's license before it expires, you would like to see an appointment system working properly.
Only errors
When I discovered the expiration date of my license, I found the DGT website with the instructions listed on how to exchange the license. They also have a system to make an appointment, I tried it that day and it gave an error. I assumed it was temporary but I tried numerous times a day at some point until I realized it's not me, it's the system. Just my luck!
As I was hoping today that the medical office was one of these offices taking care of it all, I didn't try the past days since I made this appointment. When I was told I need to be there after all, I tried again, without luck. I asked a friend to call for me, as he's been our hero whenever we were too scared to call ourselves (Lol) he told me that this was not working properly either. Great, should have seen that one coming. So when walking in for an appointment is easier said than done with everything closing at 2 PM here, I tried the final option: by email. Fingers crossed they get back to me on Monday and that they have a free spot for me before the expiration date.
Bad online infrastructure
It's beyond my belief that such important websites as well as their phone aren't working properly without anyone caring to fix it. If we'd live nearby I'd walk in to make the appointment but if it costs me half a day to get that done (depending on busses arriving or not) it's such a headache to deal with. It seems that expats are the only ones feeling annoyed by these things, probably because we are used to get things done in a faster pace than most people here. It's shown time and time again while waiting for appointments that they take all the time in the world. The upside of them having all the time in the world is that usually (we had this a few times already) they aren't really that strict with certain deadlines either (example was school registration as everything was closed all summer). The renewed license will be valid for 10 years once done if I'm correct so at least it's only a once in a decade thing to deal with.
I'm glad once the weekend is over as I hope to get a response from them tomorrow, but in reality, it's more likely to take days.. Fingers crossed..