At 7:30 this morning, the doorbell rang. Luckily it was one of the few days that Andrew was already up and heading in to the office. (Lately he’s been working from home late into the evening so the mornings haven’t been quite so early.)

When he opened the door, a police officer was standing there to greet him. Unless you are waiting for residency, it’s usually not a great feeling to open your door and see a cop. All of the bad things you have ever done in your life go rushing through you brain and you wonder if they finally caught up with you for drag racing in High School… not that I ever did that Mom… you know, just hypothetically speaking…

The officer pleasantly informed Andrew that he would have to move his car or face a 150€ fine. The car had been parked on the sidewalk.

For a bit of background, we do have a garage. It’s small and our car is a boat. When you close the garage door there is about 5cm to spare. The garage opens on to the sidewalk and there is quite a lip between the sidewalk and the road. Frankly it’s a real pain in the @ss to get in and out. Andrew usually does put the car in the garage overnight, but, if there is a chance of us going out somewhere, to avoid hassle, he leaves it on the street. He’s been doing this for nine months.

Our street, like many Belgian roads, is just big enough for two way traffic (there are two way roads here that aren’t… seriously; one or both cars have to drive on the sidewalk to pass). There are no designated parking spots, but you are allowed to park on the street. I’ve talked before about how they plant trees in the street here to slow traffic. They use parked cars in the same way, (I think this is why you aren’t allowed to park on the sidewalk).

Now I can understand why parking on the sidewalk would be bad – pedestrians and bikes would have to go around etc. However, the car doesn’t take up the whole sidewalk. There is plenty of room to get around. Moreover, the sidewalk ends immediately after our garage. That’s right… no more sidewalk. So pedestrians either have to walk on the street anyway or cross to the other side of the road.

But, that’s Belgium for you. That will teach Andrew to try to be polite to other motorists.