After almost 3 years in Germany without visiting any other city besides Nürnberg and Karlsruhe we decided that this year would be the year to visit other places in Germany.

Since Berlin ranked number 1 on our wish-list and Sander has visited this place for business last week this would be the place go. We already looked in to ways to travel and the cheapest solution would be flying. Driving with a car would be around 750 km and with the gas prices from today we would need to spend more then € 100 on gas only. The flight only costed us € 179,96 and then we don’t need to spend money on a parking-spot anymore.

The only strange thing is that the price we pay for a Flight consist of a fair from only € 17,88. The rest of the price is Tax, Fees and a Fuel-surcharge.

We both look forward to our trip starting in less then a month.

We both got our Driver’s License when we were 18 years old (Sander in 2001 and Danielle in 2002) in the Netherlands. And since we are European citizens our Dutch Driver’s License is also valid in Germany. But between European countries there is a lot of difference in regulations like with the Driver’s License. In the Netherlands there is an expiration date and in Germany there is not.

So our Driver’s License will expire. Mine in February and that made us decide to get both a new driver’s license. Begin December we went to the City Hall in Altdorf (our hometown) to request a German driver’s license. This seemed easy we needed to fill out some paperwork, a copy of our dutch Driver’s Licenses is made and we need to handover a biometric photo and after 2, maybe 3 weeks we would need to pick them up in Lauf where the local government is seated (Landesratamt).

But within one week Danielle got a letter that she need to hand-over her Driver’s License in Lauf. After a phone-call it was okay if she send a color scan. That was easy.

But 2 days later Sander got a letter to hand-over his and he needed to pay € 28,90. Sander made a phone-call and suggested to do the same as with Danielle. But this was not allowed, we need to bring our Dutch Driver’s Licenses to have them send to the German Federal Criminal Police Office to have them checked.

On Monday the 13th of December Sander drove to our Local Government to hand-over our driver’s licenses. It should take 2 weeks, maybe 3 because of the Holidays and then we could pick them up. In the mean time wegot a special paper which was a car-drive allowance for Germany, this meant it wasn’t allowed to drive outside Germany. If the Dutch licenses would have returned they would give Sander a call so he could pick them up.

But on the the 11th of January there was still no news from our local government. Sander made a phone-call and first he got the answer that nothing had happened, but he needed to hold the line for a moment….after over 5 minutes both our German Licenses were ready to be picked up.

And since the 12th of January 2011 we are both proud owners of a German driver’s license valid till 2032.