Hello, My Name Is Catherine...

...and I suck at Dutch parking garages.

Does anyone else have that problem?!

(In case you don't know about my previous parking garage skirmish, check it out here.)
But the parking saga continues...

Today, I had to take Rahel to the orthodontist in Groningen. Her orthodontist is actually located in the largest hospital in the city, and the majority of the parking is underneath the actual hospital. As you can imagine with it being the biggest Groningen hospital, it was super busy.

Well here I am in the new family bus van, inching my way into one of the two lines flowing into the parking garage. Suprisingly, I was weaseling in with ease. I should have known there was more to come. Inching my way down the ramp, I make it to the blockade of the ticket machine with about ten cars behind me. This is sounding good, right? And thinking I know exactly what I am doing, I press the round button. No ticket. I look up. The bar is still down and I can't get in. So I push the button again. Still no ticket. Then I realize that there are other slots on the ticket machine, and one is a credit card reader. But I have no card! And in looking more, there are no slots for euro coins or euro bills. Shit! Are you kidding me?! So starting to panic, I ask Rahel to please go talk to the man in the booth and ask him what to do... Being the ever-so-sociable typical 11 year old she is, she declined. So not knowing what else to do, I roll down the window, and flag the attendant over...

First thing out of my mouth: "Do you speak English??" Not really knowing whether he mumbled yes, no, or go to heck*, I immediately started spewing what I thought was going on. During all my frantic mumble, he just slowly walked over to the ticket machine, pressed the button, and Voila! There was a ticket!

What the...?!

Why couldn't the machine just have done that the 5 minutes before--you know, that time when those seven other cars breezed right on through the line beside me-- when I pushed the button?!

...Hopefully, that's the end of my garage woes, and I can park without problems from now on!


*A Shawn T. Vineyardo phrase