Getting a Brazilian Driver's License in Belo Horizonte

http://gazetaweb.globo.com/noticia.php?c=185052

Let's talk about getting a Driver's License!  Foreigners are allowed to drive for their first 180 days in Brazil using their driver's license from their home country.  Then you need to get a Brazilian License.  For the first 180 days of our Brazilian experience, there was no way in hell I wanted to get behind the wheel.  Too crazy and scary.  But then we got the Fusca, and well, it was time.  But for various reasons (mainly see the 9 steps below), I didn't bother.  But with the recent increase in blitzes, and my fear of being caught driving with out a license, it became clear that it was time to be legal.  

I would say that the whole process takes about 12 hours (including waiting).  It took me about 4 afternoons, but you could probably do it all in one day if you are really motivated and are a glutton for punishment.  

Brazil has a system in place to recognize certain country's Driver's Licenses.  If you are not American, you'll have to check to see if your country made this list.  This is assuming you have all your official paperwork in order, and you have your signature on file at a Cartorio (notary), here are the easy 9 steps to follow.  

1.  Gather the paperwork.

a.  RNE or SINCRE (sistema de cadastro e Reg. de Estrangeiro), from the Policia Federal.  If you don't have the actual physical RNE card, you can show them your "protocolo" or "requerimento de entrada junto a polícia federal acompanhado do SINCRE."  

b.  CPF

c.  Driver's License from your home country

d.  Proof of your address in Minas Gerais.  In my case, I had NOTHING (because everything is in my husband's CPF, and we are here on his visa.  I was able to use a utility bill in his name and a copy of our Marriage Certificate.

e.  Passport, with official something from Policia Federal.  This is a little piece of paper that we got from the Policia Federal (maybe this is the SINCRE?).  Matt likes to call it the "craft project" because they actually use scissors and a glue stick to piece it together.  

f.  3x4 picture (color)

You can check the website, but I don't know if it is updated very often, and it also does not let you know which documents have to be notarized.   

2.  Get your Driver's License officially translated.  In Belo Horizonte, you have to go to this address: Avenida do Contorno, 6166-Loja 9-CEP: 30110-042, between R. Alagoas and R. Pernambuco

Bring R$90 cash (though I paid less, but other people have told me they had to pay R$90), your original Driver's License and Passport, and photocopies of the picture page of your Passport and Driver's License (front and back).  This step took about an hour.  

3. Make copies of the following (from above):  b, c, d, e

4.  Visit your friendly local Cartorio.  You'll need to get official, notarized copies (cópias autenticadas) of the following (from above):  a, e. 

5.  Go to DETRAN.  In Belo Horizonte, the address is Avenida João Pinheiro 417, Centro.  Office hours are 8 am to 5 pm, but my experience was that it's not worth it to go around lunch because the one person that is trained to help foreigners takes a healthy 2 hour lunch.  So go before noon, or after 2 pm.  *** FIRST GO TO THE DESK TO MAKE SURE YOUR PAPERWORK IS CORRECT***  Don't go to the line. Don't go to get a number to wait.  You have to find the desk.  It's called something like an Orfetia, or orferia (fellow expat bloggers, help me out here).  When you go in the main entrance, you'll see a bunch of windows with a sign "informação."  There is a small door, that looks like it's for official personel only.  Go in that door, and go almost to the end of the hall.  The "office" you want to visit is on the right.  There are no signs.  If there is someone official looking, just tell them you need to get your paper work because you are a foreigner and you are getting your license.  I neglected to do this first, and ended up spending an extra hour at DETRAN.  After someone checks your paperwork, you then have to go to the Habilitação area.  This is labeled.  Tell them you are a foreigner getting your license.  Take a number and wait.  When your number is called, you give all your paperwork, they check it (again), and give you a boleto (bill) and the address for the clinic for your medical and psychological exam.  Confirm they amount that you will have to pay at the clinic.

6.  Pay the boleto at the bank.  There are lots of banks on Avenida João Pinheiro.  So the best thing is to go pay the boleto and get the correct amount of cash.  At the time of writing this, my boleto was R$150, and the fee for the clinic was R$133,35.  

7.  Go to the clinic.  At the time of writing this, the clinic was on Rua Domingo Viera in Santa Efigenia, about a 20 minute walk from DETRAN.  The clinic used to be in Centro (wouldn't that have been convenient).  You have to give them all your paperwork, and pay (cash only) and wait.  Office hours are 8 am to 5 pm, but once you get to see the doctors, it takes about 45 minutes, so you have to arrive by 4 pm if you want to be seen.  Come ready to wait.  First is the psychological examination.  You answer a bunch of questions first.  Then they have various concentration tests they give.  They can involve filling a paper with tic marks as fast as you can.  My test involved shapes in various colors and pointing different directions, and trying to remember which was which.  Then I got to pick little tiles in my favorite color and make a pyramid, and talk about which pyramid was the prettiest.  Yes, really.  Once it was determined that I was sound of mind, I got my eyes tested, was asked a few questions, and they tested my hand strength.  I passed!

8.  Go back to DETRAN.  Go back to the Habilitação area.  Take a number.  Wait.  Turn in your paperwork.  The lady who takes your paperwork doesn't normally deal with foreigners, so she has to go find someone else who does.  Wait.  They double check the paperwork.  Then go get some coffee.  They come back and triple check the paperwork.  Then I get a little piece of paper with a protocolo number, and I'm free to go.  

9.  Wait for your license to be delivered (by Correios).  It is supposed to be delivered within 15 days.  

In terms of the bureaucracy that foreigners have to deal with, getting a license is not so bad (it's all relative, of course).  Mainly because once you do these steps, you actually get a license within a timely fashion.  Good luck!

Lei Seca and what to wear at 7 am on a Saturday

We have met a great group of fellow expats here in Belo Horizonte.  And it just so happens that a large percentage of these expats are French.  We went out with them to a wonderful new French restaurant in Sion called Au Bon Vivant .  It was so so so so so yummy.  And of course, when you have delicious French food with French people, you have to have French wine.  Matt had a glass at the beginning of the evening (9 pm), and offered to drive so I could have 2 glasses.  We finally finished dessert and goodbyes at about midnight.  But when we stepped outside, we found this:

http://www.hojeemdia.com.br/minas/bh-comeca-a-ter-blitz-diaria-mais-severa-neste-sabado-1.10161

The police had set up a "blitz" right in front of the restaurant.  Thankfully, drunk driving laws changed in Belo Horizonte this year.  The new law (lei seca) is that you can not have ANY trace of alcohol in your system while driving.  Zilch.  Zero.  NONE.  If you do, you will be fined, and you may lose your license and your will be towed (I know I should research exactly what will happen, but all I know is that it is you'll get in trouble).  I think it was very necessary for the laws to change.  Two years ago, I was told that Belo Horizonte had two breathalyzers for the ENTIRE city, and it was practically impossible to get in trouble for drunk driving.  We have observed MANY drivers on our street driving while holding beer bottles.  As an American, this is a BIG NO NO.  All those MAD campaigns and after school movies, and knowing people who were killed as a result of drunk drivers has instilled in me a strong sense of what is right and wrong.  It is not good to drink while impaired.  Don't do it.  It does seem a little extreme to me that now the law is that you can't have any trace in your system, but I feel that it is probably better here to go to an extreme after years and years of living with the other end of the spectrum.

Even though none of us were impaired, and Matt was totally fine to drive, he had had a glass of wine 3 hours earlier.  We all opted to leave our cars and catch taxis.  Sometimes the blitzes involve stopping random cars, and sometimes they involve stopping every car.  This one was stopping EVERY car except taxis.  So it was better to play it safe.

Way too early the next morning, Matt had to work.  So I had to wake up and catch a bus at 7 am to make sure that I could then drive him to his rehearsal.  I had managed to take a shower and get down a cup of coffee, but I had no makeup on (I don't wear much anyway) and I was wearing sweat pants, a tee shirt and tennis shoes.  After all, I was going to have to do a little walking to catch the bus, and I wanted to be comfortable on my day off.  But, almost everyone at the bus stop was dressed to the nines!  Including this woman:

The picture doesn't do it justice.  She's got on 4 inch bright yellow heels, perfectly manicured red toenails, an animal print shirt, and she had the hair and makeup to match.  Work it honey!  I guess I need to put a little more effort into my early Saturday morning get up, especially when catching the circular bus!

out and about

I was out to do some printing this morning (yes, we still don't have a printer, but to be honest, I'm happier to not have to deal with printer issues).  It was a beautiful, clear morning, and I was without the kids, so I could give my full attention to the surroundings.  It felt like a very Brazilian walk, since I saw these things:

from http://christchurchreformed.com/

A teenage boy holding his Grandmother's hand, out for a walk.  I love how common it is for people to hold hands while out walking, and how often I see boys and young men holding their mom's hand.  My  almost 9 year old son has not adapted to the Brazilian custom, but I always make him hold my hand when we cross the street.  Last week he didn't let go after we had crossed the street, and held my hand for a whole block.  

Oooh, bad picture from the cell phone...

The coconut delivery truck blasting funk music.  For those of you who don't have the "privilege" of being familiar with funk music, I was considering posting a YouTube video.  But my 1 minute YouTube search left me feeling very offended and disgusted, so I will spare you.

Yet another bad picture from the cell...

And a walk in our neighborhood wouldn't be complete with out illegal parking.  Can you see the telephone pole at the left of the picture?  There is a no parking sign on it.  And you can see 4 cars parked illegally in front of it.  What is harder to tell, is that the first car is a POLICIA MILITAR car.  The police officers were parked there, while getting ice cream cones.  It's really no wonder that 82% of Brazilians think it is easy to break the law, and 54% see little reason to follow laws.  But I had to just chuckle to myself, and enjoy the blue sky and this crazy, complicated, wonderfully frustrating place that we live.  

Updated list of blogs I follow

I FINALLY got around to updating my blog list.  If you'd like me to add yours, please send me a message.  These are the Brazi related blogs that I enjoy reading, that appear to still be regularly updated.  I am thinking about making a list of blogs that have specific information for moving to Brazil (since that is the email request that I got most often, as in "can you tell me how to get a job?"  Or "can you tell me what it is like?"

But that is too much work for a holiday, so it will have to wait.  Happy Workers Day!

Chocolate and the American Candy Bar Invasion

Brazil is not known for it's quality chocolate.  This is very odd to me, since cacau is from the Amazon.  Don't get me wrong: Brazilians love chocolate.  But for the most part, they like milk chocolate.  And less expensive, lower quality chocolate. I realize I'm speaking in generalizations, but go to any Lojas Americanas, and you'll find at least one whole row devoted to the following:

There's a reason it's called baton (lipstick).  Eww.

I bought a box of these on a recommendation, and gave it as a gift to my sister and family.  They said it was just bad chocolate.  I feel bad that their first exposure to a Brazilian product was bad chocolate!

In terms of candy bars, there are these:

Crunchy outside, nougat-ty middle.  Not bad, but cheap chocolate.  And sometimes the chocolate gets a little soft.  Not good.

Inexpensive milk chocolate with air bubbles.  Meh.

These are yummy.  

But the WORST WORST WORST are these chocolate soccer balls.  My kids won't even eat them.  They are literally plastic.  We got a bunch at a birthday party, and I threw them all out today.

Yuck.

You can find good stuff.  Talento makes some dark chocolate bars.  I love chocolate bon-bons, like Seranata do Amor and Sonho de Valsa.  And Diamante Negro is good (crunchy toffee pieces in chocolate).

One thing I've noticed in our three years here, is the introduction of American candy bars into the mix.  First it was Snickers.  They were more expensive when they arrived, but now you can find them for R$1.49 (or so).  Then came Twix.  These also have gone down in price.  From a brief google search, it looks like they have been in Brazil since 2000 and 2001 respectively, but I didn't see them in Belo Horizonte until at least 2011.  Maybe I was just so absorbed with daily life and adjusting that I never noticed.  But it can be verified that  KitKat arrived in 2011, which is still about R$2.50.  And now I can find Milky Ways!  I used to eat a Milky Way a day in high school when I was playing volleyball.  Oh my.  What will arrive next?  

Does your help speak English?

Thank God my phone calls aren't like this anymore.  I think this is funniest if you speak Portuguese.  Enjoy!  

Rain, rain, go away

http://www.nola.com/opinions/index.ssf/2010/08/tropical_depression_5_coming_b.html

It's been cloudy cloudy cloudy, rainy rainy rainy here.  As in UNSEASONABLY rainy.  Last Tuesday one of the streets in our neighborhood literally turned into a river.  I was out with my oldest daughter, and I was a little bit afraid that we'd get hit by a floating trash can or pulled into the current in the street.  On Saturday we stood in our dining room during a huge storm and watched "protective" netting and large boards fly off the construction project that is happening 300 feet from our house (scary).  I also saw a weird blue flash from a transformer blowing in our neighborhood.  The rain has caused a huge mosquito population, and dengue is rampant, with over 50,000 cases in our state.  And the price of tomatoes has skyrocketed, mainly due to poor crops because of the rain.  

On top of that, the grey skies just start to get people down.  Maybe that's why there's been a rash of blog posts addressing some challenges in Brazil, or "interesting" culture differences.  This post about mediocrity has really got me thinking, especially working here as an educator.  But when combined with the rain, it's been tempting to sulk, and just feel downright grumpy about most everything.  

But yesterday the sun came out!  Hope is restored.  And today THE SUN CAME BACK!!  I stood in my laundry area for a full minute, just letting the sun shine on my face this morning.  Thank you.