Parthemores in Poland

Well, after 20 months of owning a car, it finally happened.  We got…The Boot.

Adding insult to injury was that this happened right in front of our building.  Explaining why might take a while.

The first part of the problem was the new road.  After 10 months of construction, it was finally completed about two months ago.  Now we have the most beautiful road in Poznań.

As part of this new road, they included a random paved 20’x30’ section.  (There is a silver car parked there in the picture.) To the casual observer, this looks like either a) parking spaces or b) it should have a basketball hoop.  There are no signs posted and no lines. 

Our nice new road has a sign prohibiting parking on the bike path or on that side of the road.  But surely this couldn’t apply to the tiny parking area. 

As the guy was un-booting us, he confirmed that it did.  We then asked what that space was for and he just shrugged.

In May, Poland suffered widespread flooding in all of the major rivers.  There was some coverage in the American media.  The flood plays a critical role in this story, because this is why we were parked outside to begin with.  Our apartment sits right behind a 105-year-old retaining wall over the Warta River.  Here is the view at normal river height:

As the water continued to rise, there was concern over the integrity of the wall.  One of the newspapers contributed to the fearmongering:

(When I saw this, I could understand “This wall might something.”  The dictionary informed me that runąć means “collapse.”  Yikes!)

At the highest stage of the river, the underground garage was below the water level.  There was an evacuation plan, and we even had a suitcase packed up with our important documents and some essentials.  Thankfully, we didn’t need it.  The building administrators recommended that people move their cars and belongings out of the garage.  So of course, we complied. 

Therefore, we were a little P.O.’d about getting the boot.  We thought we had parked legally after having to abandon our garage due to the possibility of our apartment building collapsing into the river. 

But the guy who removed the boot was super nice about it.  He took all our documentation and told us how he lived in Hawaii for four years.  As Eric was taking out his wallet to pay, they guy holds out his hand and says, in a weird John Wayne-type accent, “Settle down, tiger.” 

So in the end, we didn’t have to pay a fine and our apartment didn’t fall into the river.  Doesn’t get much better than that.