Parking Stinks in Germany - What you need to avoid

There are days like today when we are pretty sure we have the worst luck in the world. When we first arrived in Germany we parked in a handicapped spot accidentaly (when parallel parking, the sign marking it a handicapped space is on the end, not the beginning of the space) and got a speeding ticket (going 10 over the speed limit in a 30 zone we didnt realize had dropped so suddenly) because we didnt understand the way parking works here. We think we figured it out, knew where to park and where not to park.