On the way to town this morning I said to Olof that it would be great if I had an angle with the driving test examiner. You know, like if he had a particular interest in the States or had lived in Idaho or wanted to speak English or anything special we had in common that would take his focus off the testing somewhat and give us something to talk about other than my driving. Imagine, then, my surprise and inner relief when the examiner turned out to be a parent of one of the kids in Lydia’s grade. His son is in a different class from Lydia so he isn’t someone I actually knew, but the common ground of having kids in the same grade at the same school was exactly the kind of thing I’d been wishing for and it helped considerably to break the ice.

After the first couple of minutes, my nervousness all but disappeared and the test passed more or less uneventfully. I made a couple of minor mistakes, but nothing glaring or terrible. Though I did have to back around a corner, I didn’t–thankfully–have to parallel park or do anything else that posed much of a challenge. The whole thing lasted only about twenty minutes, and the end result, in case you hadn’t guessed already, was me being awarded a brand-spanking-new Swedish driver’s license.

The first thing I did–after exhaling–was to go to my car and take down that blasted “practice driver” sign. Good riddance!