To park or not to park? That is the question.

Well, some days it was not to park as I don't dare park in the street or halfway on teh curb so we would just skip an errand and come back later or park far away and then walk to the destination. Below you will find Chris' first blog entry (yay Chris!). Keep in mind that he's not yet sat behind the wheel. He doesn't have a local driver's license yet. As soon as he does, I am sure he'll have a lot more on his mind. Let's start then...

CHRIS: One of the oddest things to me in this country is not the fact that some people impatiently zip around trams or floor it to get ahead of a bus as it's leaving one of its stops. To me, seeing how people handle the parking in inventive and freaky ways amazes me. Not as much as the fact that it's generally accepted as nothing too special though.

For example, a lot of the inventive parking I can understand due to the size of the city and the general shortage of parking spaces due to the city's age (hey, it's over a thousand years old if memory serves atm -- so it's OLD). Even in the 'newer' parts of the city that have only been around for 100 years or so; the general layout was not originally designed for such a vast need for parking. And that makes perfect sense. However, even understanding that, it's hard to overlook when you see the odd behavior which is just accepted as normal.

For example, No one would be too suprised to see a packed parking lot and not only are people 'making' their own parking spaces by parking parallel to the end of a line of cars (and narrowing the driving area to a single lane). I think most Americans who'd been to other cities would recognize that as a ass-holish - but valid parking strategy on a major shopping occassion (like Black Thursday - the insanity that occurs every Day after Thanksgiving). I'm sure most people would simply do as I do in such circumstances. Namely, to wish a painful plague on the inconsiderate 'jerk' and pray that he gets a stack of very costly tickets in addition to getting his car towed. Here in Croatia though, not only is the parking NORMALLY like this on the weekends, but the attitude of the locals on such parking is a mere shrug.

The things I've NEVER seen before that I'm observing over here really flabbergasts me at times. I'll share a choice few with you and ask the reader to keep in mind that 85% of the cars over here are VERY small when you go to the city. With some more expensive mid-sized taking up the bulk of the remainder with actual American-sized SUV's taking up less than a percent I'd say. Mind you, I've never actually SEEN an SUV parked here; getting room to park in one of those monsters here would require a copious amount of patience that I have trouble asserting to anyone who would actually drive something that not just in Europe - but anywhere. I'm pretty sure most of the vehicles that sized must have designated parking already or use a private driveway if they even dare to go anywhere near the city.

With the vehicle size in mind, here's some of the choicer things that have really warped my world here in terms of parking.

One : Cars parked up on the sidewalk of a housing/commerical area - not just single up on the sidewalk, but a hodgepodge of double parallel parking and horizontal combined. Sometimes, if the sidewalk is large enough (like around a couple of the larger parks in the city proper), you actually have ROWS of them with a teeny-tiny driveway through the middle of them that if you didn't SEE people zipping down it at 20 MPH that you'd swear someone would have to go at a crawl to make it through such a space.

Two : Seeing a narrow parking lot ANYWHERE in the city. The builders provided for horizontal parking on either side of the lots - with a nice enough room for a novice driver to back out of a parking spot without damaging anything. So, what do you think we see in such lots these days? .. ... .. I bet the answer you were thinking of wasn't a Parallel Lane in the MIDDLE of the lot for it's full length with the cars in the middle being bumper to bumper. Even with the amazing turn radius's on tiny cars like they have here the cars basically end up with barely enough room to drive past each side. However, (as empty spaces in them that I've observed seemingly testify) apparently some people with enough patience and perseverence, someone on tte sides CAN escape from a seeingly hopelessly trapped state.

Three : This really has to the top one in my book and it kind of freaks me out every time we see it ('Me' being Mirjana and myself). But, apparently it's acceptable behavior here on the roads in and around the city that if you're in a marked two-lane road and you can't easily find parking to simply pull your lazy (and crazy) ass in the MIDDLE of the street and park. Then, run or walk (I've seen both behaviors) to the side and continue on your way to the bakery or whatever you were planning on hitting. Apparently the fact that they are only PARTIALLY obstructing traffic in not merely a single directions - but BOTH directions on the small streets here is not an issue to the local mindset.

Part of me wonders if there is some kind of odd game in the works that we're unaware of and the players get bonus points for nearly causing accidents - with bonus points for sudden swerving and parking or finding JUST the perfect spot to park the vehicle you're driving on the busy street outside your favorite bakery or grocery store so you can choke traffic to as much of a crawl as possible. If so, I'm sure they get more points for the length of the traffic backups they cause too, and if making other drivers cuss or stunning them counts, then they've been racking up points off me like a hyper teenager gleefully blowing me away again and again and again in their favorite 3D-shooter videogame.