Today has not been a good day.  Not a good day at all.

While Brad was here in Texas without us, he shopped around and found us a new car to buy (we don't currently own a car, since we had a company car while we were in Germany).  But, we are not allowed to drive the car off the lot without a current TX driver's license.

  So, we got up early this morning with the plan to go to the DMV, get new driver's licenses, then head to the car lot and get our car so I'd have something to drive.  We looked up locations online, as well as the required documentation we needed, and set off glibly thinking we were prepared and everything was under control.  

We were so wrong.

Firstly, it took us three tries to find the right place.  When we finally arrived at the correct location, there was a long line OUTSIDE the DMV, since the office was completely full.  I should also mention that it was 100+ degrees, and we got to wait on a hot sidewalk for TWO HOURS before we finally reached the door to the DMV.  

That is when we were finally able to talk to a DMV employee, at which time we learned that we needed to have two proofs of residency (this was not mentioned on the website).  The lady gave us list of accepted proofs, and our hearts fell as we realized that we didn't have a single one.  Since we are living in temporary corporate housing until we find a house, we don't have any contracts/utility bills with our names on them.  Many of the other accepted documents are things like car titles, boat titles, etc, WHICH REQUIRE A TEXAS DRIVER'S LICENSE TO HAVE.  To say we were frustrated would be a major understatement.

In a panic, we went to the car dealership to see if they could help us with anything (we just wanted to get our car!).  The guys there looked over the list with us and together we figured out what we could do to fulfill the residency requirements.  We then spent the remainder of the day getting car insurance (for a car we couldn't own yet), opening a checking account so we'd have a statement with our name and address on it, and begging the HR department at Brad's work to write an official letter explaining our living situation and verifying that we do indeed live at the address.  All this as we progressively deteriorated into worse and worse jet lag.

By the end of the day, we were at our wits' end.  The final straw was when I tried to activate my American cell phone and nothing I did would work.  This whole day has been an exercise in futility.

I am not loving Texas so far.