Strange Happenings In France - Parking Incident

We took a day-trip to Albi.  On the way back, we stopped by the Gaillac Wine festival.  Basically, there were a bunch of tiny wooden house booths set-up in a park.  You pay 5 euro and can try the wine from any of the booths.  If you like it, you can buy the bottles right there.  One of the neat things about these types of festivals is that you can find local wine you like that costs only about 4-6 euro per bottle. 

Even a Pirate Wine Booth

Because we were at a park, we could send the kids over to either sit on a boring bench or to play on the playground.  They selected the playground.  This way we could try wine without Alex the pinball bouncing between us.  

The strange happening wasn't related to the festival, but was rather before we got to the festival.  We needed to find a place to park.  Dan researched and figured out that we were allowed to park in a space with blue dashes marking it.  Then we had to display some sort of dial that showed when we would return.  Because the festival was going on, we had a hard time finding parking.  Plus, we had the bike rack attached to our car, so we needed a fairly large spot if we wanted to successfully get into it.  Finally, we found a spot that had blue dashes, but it also had yellow dashes.  We pulled in to google what that meant.  It wasn't too difficult to fit into the space, so no problem getting in.  

As we were contemplating the blue-yellow dashes, the car in front of us started backing up.  This was ok as we were in a large space.  But, oddly, it kept backing up.  So, I honked the horn.  But no, it kept coming.  Fortunately it was moving slowly.  So when it hit us, it was quite mild.  Plus, I put the car in neutral so that we moved slightly when it hit.  

Concerned that we now had a weird accident issue on our hands, but hopeful no damage had been done by the low impact bumper bump, we waited for the driver of the other car to get out.  But there was no driver!  The car had simply rolled back into us, perhaps brought on by the vibration of our car parking near it.  

UM..........

Now what?

Silly Twingo without a driver

The little Twingo was right on our bumper.  If we backed up, it would roll back further.  But we still hadn't figured out if we could even park in the blue-yellow spot.  So we sat on a bench and googled.  Waiting patiently for someone to show up.  Perhaps a friendly police officer would find us and be able to answer both of our questions.  The one about parking in blue-yellow and the one about what to do with the Twingo.  

Out of nowhere, someone came up to the stuck car, got in, and drove away.  No words to us, but hey, our problem was solved.  We were able to escape the parking spot and go to an alternate location where we could park properly and alone in our space.

It was one of those moments when we just had no idea how to handle the situation.  Fortunately, waiting patiently is usually effective.