The Rules of the Road

While I'm sure there are plenty of worse things that can happen, for today, there was nothing worse than coming out of my parent/teacher conferences to find that my car was no longer where I parked it.  It actually took me a minute to even realize it wasn't there.  I actually crossed the street over to another campus building, passing by the side of the street where my car was (no longer) parked and didn't make the connection that there was not a single car on that side of the road.  It wasn't til Aidan asked if he could wait in the car while I helped Liam's friend gather his things in his cubby that I realized that, no, Aidan, you can't wait in the car because the car... it's not there.

Ahhh Spain!  Because it's not enough that the kids didn't have school Friday or Monday because of conferences, but my big plan to have both kids have friends over so I could work while they were entertained was very quickly turning to dust.  I surprisingly took it all pretty well because I figured that this happens regularly up at school and they must know where my car was.  I immediately delegated Aidan to help Liam and Logan get Logan's things and I headed up to the school office to see if they could help me.  

So why was I towed?  Well, there is no parking lot at the school.  Everyone parks along the side streets next to the campus buildings.  These are not official city parking spots but with several private schools in the area, beggars can't be choosers.  And from what I know, and I could be totally wrong, they don't tow during drop off or dismissal times.  But it has been a concern for me on the days that I pick Aidan up and then have to wait and hour to pick up Liam - the only good thing is that the school up the road gets out at 5 so my hope is the tow trucks don't bother with the cars during those times.  

But today I wasn't there during drop off or pick up times - I was there at 9:30 for conferences that would take me til 11:30.  Regardless, it was totally unexpected and not the way I was planning to spend the rest of my morning.  

The good news is that, as expected, the school is used to this and not only had a piece of paper with all the details on where I needed to go, but also called a taxi for me as I not only had my two kids but a friend of Liam's with me (and we still had to go pick up a friend of Aidan's!).  The taxi arrived pretty promptly and we were off to the Dipòsit Municipal.  

Thankfully the school was prepared!

It was pretty straightforward thankfully - they asked for my license plate number which I don't know.  I described the car and he told me where it was and that I had to bring my registration back for them to confirm everything.  So I hunted down my car in the lot, got the registration and then back to the payment counter.

It took him forever.  It wasn't a complex process, but he had to copy all of my registration info, all my license info (good thing I had that!) and then the computer froze and he had to do it all by hand.  About 15 minutes and 147 euros later, my little car was free!!!

It felt really good that I didn't freak out and knew that somehow I would find my car despite not being able to communicate totally fluently.  It was just an ahhhhh Spain kind of moment that I knew had to sneak up sooner or later!!  Right now, my car is safe and secure in her little spot in my garage and there she shall stay for the rest of the day!!

Logan, Liam and Aidan ready to leave the tow lot!

Besos,

Julie