I woke up the other morning and a strange sight greeted me out our living room windows. It took me a minute to figure out what was wrong. There were NO cars parked on the street across from us. I called Sallie and Robert over and we all stood there in shock. Now, we have known for months that they would soon put in paid parking meters over there, but to have the cars gone overnight was bizarre. When we went to bed the night before, the usual 50 cars were parked up and down the street and presto..at 7 am they had disappeared. For the following three days these weird events continued. We knew our time was short for our usual parking places next to the aromatic dumpsters.
So, that Saturday Mike and I drove to the Parking Permit office in central Abu Dhabi. I say Mike and I because I had to drive him there as there is no place to park. I know, hard to believe. Anyway, I put my flashers on and waited for Mike in the taxi pull out section of the road. People don't like that but you gotta do what you gotta do. I waited for about 15 minutes. He comes out with empty hands. No parking permit. These permits are a yearly pass for the paid spots along only your section of residence. They cost about 400 dollars and they don't guarantee you a spot . If there IS a spot you can use it and not get a ticket. "Honey, what did they say? Did you get a permit for us?" "Nope, apparently we don't have a parking problem in our section." ????????????????????????????? Anyway, because the paid parking is not on our side of the street and won't be for TEN months we can't have a permit. Only those people across from us will have access to the 25 paid spots. It's ok to laugh. What else can you do? :)
For a couple more days we were able to park on our side of the street, in the street. Then the tickets started showing up. We did find a solution though. There is valet parking for our building under the building that is behind us that is not finished. We used it for awhile but then, when they scraped off the paint along the left side of Mike's car, and it cost us about 2000 dollars to get if fixed, we quit using it. Perhaps the men parking the cars are better now as they have had more practice. But what choice do we have? I WILL say it helps traffic along our road. And the car is a bit cooled off by the time they bring it to us. I'm sure we will get used to it, but the street still looks very strange.....
