In every place, there are things that are unreasonable. About two years ago, Jessy and I decided to go on a trip to Ocean City, New Jersey. We decided to take Jessy’s car since my car is too small and her car has a GPS. It took about 8 hours for us to get there. I would never drive again that long in one day. Maximum number of hours I can drive in one day is 7 hours. I do not know how people can drive such a long distance in one day in the United States. But I think it is very common to drive a long distance here since the country is so big. Seriously, everything is big in America. 🙂

We stayed there for about 4 days, lying on the beach and playing a few rounds of golf. It was very relaxing and fun. But, we had no idea that the unbelievable event was waiting for us. Coming back, we were so happy that we were getting closer to home. As I was parking Jessy’s car, I realized that my car was not there anymore. As soon as we got out of the car, we started to walk around, looking for my car. But, we could not find it. “Oh, no! My car is stolen! What the heck!” said I. I looked down and that was the moment that I noticed that something was not the same. The road had been all scrapped and under the construction. Later, I learned that this is very typical in Pittsburgh. During summer, there are always road works to fix the potholes created during winter because of all the salts spread on the roads to get rid of snow.

Apparently, there was a road work during our absence and I found a few papers flooding around the road. So, I grabbed one and started to read it. It says, “The road will be repaved. Please move your car to other places or your car will be towed at your cost!” And, at the bottom, there was a date of notice and enforcement date. The notice date was just one day before the enforcement date, which means it was just one day notice and they towed not only my car but also all of the other cars parked on the street. How unreasonable it is! It gets even worse.

Car pound (source: www.post-gazette.com)

There was a phone number on the paper and I called them to get my car because I needed it to go to work as soon as possible. And, they gave me another number to call to get my car back. It was the number of the Pittsburgh pound. Now, what is pound? pound is one of the units of mass or weight. Or, if you are in UK, it is their unit of currency. But in this context, it is a place where all of the towed cars are located. The full expression is “car impound lot” or “car impound yard.” When they told me, “You should call the pound with the phone number I gave you.” I was like, “What the heck is pound here? Is it the name of parking lot or what?”

Well, what can I do? I went to the pound and payed around $120 to get my car back. Wait! It is not the end of the story. About 4 months later…. Read again! 4 months, not a few weeks or a month. It was 4 months later. I got a mail from the Pittsburgh Police in which they said I need to pay $100 fine because of illegal parking. Can you believe it? What is wrong? I could not believe what just happened. This time, I could not accept it. So, I went to the court by myself and fought about it. The judge said, “You already paid a lot for getting your car back and it is not reasonable at all for you to pay it with that short notice. You do not need to pay the fine at all.” I won. What a victory! Can you imagine that a non-native English speaker goes to the court all by himself and explain what happened in front of a judge and other police officers? I am telling you! Living in a foreign country is not easy at all. In fact, it is very challenging.

So, if you think about moving to a foreign country, you better be well prepared. 🙂