Where should you park a bicycle?

One of our friends is here for a few months and bought himself a bicycle to ride around. Brave guy, but that is another topic.

When he comes home on his bike (he lives in our apartment building with us) he has been making quite a stir lately. It seems no matter where he parks and locks his bike someone is not happy about it. “No, you can’t park here. Park it over there.” Only to be told when parking over there “You can’t park it here, you have to park it over on that side of the parking area.” And so on. He has been told at least a dozen different places in which to park and lock his bike. My take on the whole thing is that it is somewhat cultural and somewhat a test of him and his patience.

In some ways I think the people are just trying to see if he will actually listen to them and move the bike. A power trip of sorts. In other ways it could be a matter of him being ‘the stupid foreigner who can’t even figure out where to park his bicycle’ so they have to tell him. We are all perceived as being a bit stupid at times simply due to our nationality. That and rich.

So our friend has decided to park wherever he good and well feels like it and let the others fight over it amongst themselves. Good solution me thinks.