On our first day in Spain, we went to the town hall to begin our residential paperwork. We followed our other ex-pat friends who had already been on the ground for several years and who spoke Spanish fluently.
There were a few tiny spaces near the town hall, but we didn’t want to try to squeeze in. Rather, we followed our friends to an area further away with a lot of wide, open spaces. No “squeezing in” required!
Long Enough!
We were only in the town hall for about 20 minutes—just long enough!
When we got to our vehicles, we all noticed parking tickets on our windshields. Ugh oh!
Forty euros!!!!
Our eyes were suddenly opened. We looked up and noticed that we were parked directly in front of the entrance of the local police station. A clearly marked sign in Spanish hung just above our cars. It said, “Official vehicles only.” The curb was also painted bright sunshine yellow.
“Warning! Don’t park here!” it screamed.
“Sorry!”
Vincent and I walked up to a police officer standing nearby and spoke in English. “Hola, we are so sorry. We don’t speak Spanish. Our family just arrived in Spain yesterday. We are sorry that we didn’t know.”
He pointed to the “no parking” sign and then pointed to the counter where we could pay the parking ticket.
No grace for us today!
Language barriers can be costly.
“That was such a great cultural learning experience,” Vincent said as he walked back to our car after paying the parking ticket.
“I’m glad you had fun. Let’s try to find some free language and cultural learning lessons from here on out,” I replied with a grin.
—The Cultural Story-Weaver
Let’s Weave Cultures!
Have you ever traveled to a foreign country and had to pay the price for a language barrier? What happened?
We invite you to tell us your own cultural stories and global adventures . . . as you engage with the world, breaking down barriers, building bridges, and “weaving cultures”! Write about them in the comment box below.
