Fri 26 May 2006
Lest I depart Europe with the smug confidence that I had learned how to drive and park on the sidewalk, the Budapest parking patrol gave me a lesson in humility a couple days ago. Upon returning to my car, parallel parked with two wheels on the sidewalk like the other seven cars adjacent to mine, I found a 10,000 Forint ($50) parking ticket on my windshield. The ticket was issued 15 minutes before my parking permit expired, so I had no idea what was going on.
A call to the city administration (made by a helpful friend) revealed that I should actually have parked all four wheels on the street, not just two. Of course, the only way a foreigner like me would know this would be if I had either recognized a sign marking the area or maybe if I had acquired a Hungarian driver’s license and studied all the parking rules in the process. Having not done this, I suppose the last laugh was on me after all.
Valerie once got a ticket for parking all four wheels on the sidewalk in a two-wheels-only-on-the-sidewalk area, and plenty of others we know have parked all four wheels on the street and received tickets. Furthermore, all the other cars around me were parked identically to mine. This is simply an unsolved mystery for me, a departing gesture of affection from Budapest.
