The art of parking your car and bringing you back home.

Yesterday I went out, and when the time to come back home arrived, my friend proposed to drive me home. That’s the beautiful part of living in a country as Italy: whereas I could have died walking hours in France, I never saw any Italian guy not bringing you back home safe. I can say that first I was feeling like a “pain in the ass” when they were proposing, but now I kind of enjoy it even if always thankful.

Anyway, that’s not the topic of that post. So basically, we walked until the car, one of my friends was keep saying he was not parked properly (something usual in Italy too, I never saw someone parking his car properly). When we arrived there, he had a fine, he took it and put it on another car. He explained to me that he had “borrowed” the fine to an unlucky guy so police would think he had already a fine. I was flabbergasted. He told me: “yes we’re abusing of the “sfortuna” of a guy for our own sake” and then added with a big smile: “tomorrow, we will be on your blog”. So I replied “you know usually, I don’t write about a behavior until I see it reproduced 2 or 3 times, I don’t write clichés based on one occurrence”. So he told me “well, believe me, this is something common in Italy”…

This is quite funny how this country is about avoiding the rules, like if rules were made not to be respected if they bother you and prevent you from reaching your goal, meaning finding a convenient parking lot, close to the place you go. Since I’m in Italy, I saw my friends parking everywhere but still though going through a complete analyzing process where to put their car, as if they were hidden rules saying that some specific areas were forbidden but fine free. I have to admit, I still haven’t been able to understand the difference, why a lot 2 meters upfront would be ok and the other one not, why you can park on this sidewalk but not that one… this is a mystery, all I know is that it works, I never came back seeing a fine on a car, and when they can’t do it, they can always steal  a fine if ever there are some around…