More Brushes with the Polizei

Okay, I don't know what's happened to me since I moved to Germany.  I have had more incidents driving in the two years we've been here than ever in my life.  I blame it on narrow streets, cars parked on both sides of the streets and big trucks that just stop and put on their blinkers.

I was stuck behind a big truck that was stopped with its blinkers on and waiting until it was clear so I could go out around him and continue.  Someone was trying to go past me going the other way so I was trying to give him more room and rubbed the parked car on my right.  Having learned my lesson last time I stopped and called the police.  I waited for an hour and nobody came.  I called them again and they said someone was on the way.  So I waited another hour.  I was seriously thinking of just going home but I figured someone was probably watching me out their window and if I left they'd call the police on me and I'd be a criminal again.  So I called again and he said "You haven't seen the police yet?"  I said "Nein!"  So after another 10 minutes the police finally came.  I mentioned to them that I had been waiting for over 2 hours and they said they had just gotten the call 10 minutes ago!  (Oh, and while I was waiting there for 2 hours a very nice old man stopped his car and rolled down his window to tell me that I wasn't supposed to be parked there and shook his head at me.)

So while the police were talking to me and we were looking at the other car the owner of the other car came out.  He looked at it (very minor, I rubbed off the mark on my car with my hand) and said "Don't worry, no problem."  His German was a little better than mine but he was Russian.  It was an old car.  So I was relieved because it was Eric's company car.  But then a few days later somebody called me and started rattling on and on in German.  I caught the word for accident the phrase for self-pay or insurance.  I asked him to call back when I had a german friend over who could translate.  So it turns out that the Russian guy got a friend from work to call me to tell me that the cost for the repairs was 200 euros and did I want to pay or have the insurance pay.  My German friend said that there's no getting of three estimates or anything like that in Germany.  She advised me to pay it since it was so low and then get him to sign a statement that the matter is now closed.  So the Russian guy came over to my house and brought a copy of the accident report.  I gave him 200 euro and he wrote that the cased was closed on the report, signed it and left it with me.  So I guess he got some quick money out of me but I didn't have to report the accident to my husband's company car insurance.  Much cheaper than my last run in with a parked car!

Then yesterday I was driving the van in a parking garage and I knocked down the lighted exit sign that was hanging from the ceiling.  Some workers were right there and said they'd ask the management if I had to pay for it and took my name and number.  I was so frustrated because the garage said it was 2.1 meters high and my van is only 2.04 meters high, including the cute little lights that stick out on top.  This isn't the first time either.  I have hit the swinging exit signs before.  They don't break but they make a loud noise that scares me.  And one time I knocked those cute little lights on top of the van right off.  That was a loud noise!  I don't think I'll go into a parking garage again!  I so miss wide streets and large parking lots!!!!!

Oktoberfest just finished again.  This time I was there when all the beer tents had their beer delivered by the big horses.

Those are metal muzzles on those poor horses.