The Art of On Street Parking

As you know we don't have any parking at the house, no driveway, garage or anything of the sort (Tom does miss his garage!). This has proven to be an Adventure in it's self.

First let's understand how the parking works......
All of the street parking is marked with lines so you can tell if it is Scooter parking, Residential parking, Handicapped parking or Open for anyone.
On our street we have NO Open for everyone spots. All of them are marked Residential or Scooter with 1 Handicapped. In fact we have to go more than 3 blocks and there are only 2 Open spots (which are always taken).
Of course the parking is first come first serve and with the number of scooters people drive they just park their cars and leave them for weeks in the same spot. Usually only driven when they have to.
Also remember that our street is narrow and one way so it only has parking on one side.

So that brings us to parking our car. Now we currently don't have FL plates. We are working on that but somehow in the move we lost the title to the Murano so now we are trying to get a duplicate title (with the help from Shirley and yes this HAS NOT been fun doing it long distance).
Without a standard FL plate or a residential parking permit (without a title we can't get either one) we aren't supposed to park in a Residential space but since there are no Open spaces it has been a full time job looking for a spot to park and then when one opens up close to the house moving the car so that we do not get a ticket. We have already had NUMEROUS notes left on the car about not being allowed to park in ae Residential space. People think we are tourists so it happens a lot.
Parking is taken VERY seriously here. Yesterday someone parked and overlapped the scooter parking in front of our house. It created quite an issue and the parking police was called to ticket the car!

To add to the fun these spots are all small parallel spots. Now you can just imagine me trying to back the Murano into one of these spots when both front and back spots are full. I will tell you it DOESN'T happen! I have been known to park many blocks away just to get a spot I can get into. To say the least Tom doesn't let me drive if he doesn't have to.

Then there is the Unloading Sprint and Relay (a new Olympic sport coming soon). This is when we have been some where and need to unload the car since we have NO idea where we will park. Due to our narrow, one way street you can stop and unload but it has to be quick if cars are coming. You should see Tom and I's latest speed round. We are getting it down to a science!

I tell you now there is a scooter in our very near future since there is Scooter parking in front of our house!