Something didn't feel right about this parking garage. It was too small, there was absolutely no one in it and there were no parking attendants in the office which appeared to be closed.  So we decided to turn around and head out, but just as we started to drive down the ramp, the garage door began to shut.  We all sat there in stunned silence until we heard the final clang of the metal making contact with concrete.  Then Francesca and I looked at each other and said simultanousely "Oh shit!".......

Driving in a foreign city (although let's be honest, the city isn't foreign, we are!) can be daunting and it can be even more stressful when looking for a parking spot or garage especially when there are three young kids carrying on in the backseat after having been couped up in the vehicle for the last hour.  

As always I was driving (Francesca can't drive stick) and Francesca was navigating (I don't pay attention well enough to navigate). We had already failed to find two public parking garages that, despite us following the signage, had failed to appear (or more likely, we just failed to see them).  So when, after driving around for 20 minutes, Francesca saw a large blue PARKING sign about half way down the street with the door open, we decided to take it.  As we were pulling in Francesca noticed "56 Euros" on the sign, but I waved it off saying that it couldn't be that expensive for parking and must be referring to something different - so desperate were we to find parking that we ignored this big red flag staring us - or at least Francesca - in the face. 

We pull into the garage and immediately notice that the ramps up and down are SUPER narrow - more narrow than most parking garages in Spain (which are already pretty darn narrow). But again, we ignore this and proceed up the ramp.  We notice that there were spots that were doubled up - meaning that if someone parked behind us we wouldn't be able to get out.  It also occured to us that there was no ticket machine to record our time of arrival.  All of these peculiarities started to add up and so we made the decision to abondon this odd parking struture and seek a more "normal" one.  But as we decended the ramp we had come up only minutes ago, we saw the metal garage door closing.  

At first we were in disbelief.  Why would they be closing the garage door? But we weren't too worried figuring maybe it was sensor activated and would open when we got closer.  After that didn't happen, I parked and told Francesca and the kids to say put and I would go find the office and have them open the door.  Problem was, there was no office.  Well, there was but it was locked and all the lights were off. 

At this point I start to worry a little wondering how the heck we were going to get the car out of there. But I wasn't panicked because I figured we could just walk out the pedestrian exit and find someone to open up the gate for us to get our car out. Problem was, there was no pedestiran exit.  Okay, now the panic stared to creap in....hard.  It was becoming clear that somehow we had gotten trapped inside a parking garage with no windows or doors and no office. 

Of course we didn't want to scare the kids so we turned it into a game.  We had just done a family escape room in Slovenia and so we turned this into a real live escape room.  We all fanned out to look for clues on how to escape the parking garage.  The kids found a red push button on the wall one level down. It was next to a metal door with a sign on it completely in Spanish.  The kids thought we should press it, but I was able to understand enough of the Spanish to know it had something to do with gas so I urged them to leave it alone.  Although it did look like a panic button which I was tempted to press given my rising levels of fear at this point. 

The kids tried all of the doors, but they were all locked.  Then Francesca made a break through.  She found a notice on one wall that had a phone number on it.  We figured that was the parking garage admin and we could ring them and let them know - assuming they understood English - what had happened and to come let us out or open the door remotely.  We both pulled out our phones, but neither of us were able to connect.  The eSIM cards we were using had proven to be unreliable - sometimes the calls went through, sometimes they didn't.  Of course, Murphy was in the building this time so those calls did not go through.  

Then the kids found a switch on the wall and with Francesca's blessing, flipped it.  Immediately - and I can only assume cooincidentally - we heard the sound of water rushing.  The kids started freaking out thinking that the switch had unleashed a torrent of water that would fill up the garage and drown us.  As unlikely as that was, it was still a very unnearving experience 

After about 25 minutes we were out of places to look and ideas for next steps. The only thing keeping us (or at least me) from a full panic attack was the fact that it was only 10am and we could hear people walking on the sidewalk right in front of the garage so, although it would be embarrassing, and we would have to hope for an English speaking pedestrian, we could always yell for help.  Fortunately Ryan had just learned "Necesitamos ayuda!" in his DuoLingo lesson so we could at least start from there. 

As the only extrovert of the family, I knew the task of yelling out through the metal gate would fall on me and I was not relishing the humiliation.  But, as the man of the household I felt a strong, if not outdated, sense that I would need to man up.  My family seemed to be thinking the same thing becuase when I looked their way I noticed that they were all looking at me expectantly.  I took a deep breath and approached the garage door when, all of a sudden, like an 11th hour stay of execution, the door sprang to life and started to open. 

We could hear the voices of a man and a woman talking enthousiastically in Spanish. I watached as their shoes turned into legs, torsos and finally faces.  Interestingly they didn't seem surprised to see us at all - as if this sort of thing happened with some frequency.  We, on the other hand, almost ran over to them to hug our saviors!  But we didn't.  We were able to understand from the couple that this was a private garage with a monthly fee and every paying customer has a key - hence the 56 Euros, the lack of attendees and no door open button. 

While we were thanking them, they urged us to get into our car and exit quickly as the door only stayed open for a short amount of time. So we all piled into our rental car - like the Grizwold's heading to WallyWorld - and started to head out the door.  BUT, that was not the end of the story.  There was one more pitfall we had not anticipated.  Remember when I said the ramps were narrow?  Well, it appears that my back right tire was precariously hanging over the edge of the ramp.  It wasn't high enough to cause any damage to us passengers, but probably enough to ground our car and render us immoble if it slipped off the edge.  Fortunately I could feel that the tire was not on solid ground and was able to reverse just enough to get us back on the ramp, adjust course and jet out the door just before the garage started to close behind us.

Now that the situation had resolved itself safely and relatively quickly (we only lost about 30 mins) we started laughing hysterically at what had just happened.  The rest of our day proceeded without a hitch and we had no further issues with our next parking garage.

I think we should go find another escape room now. After the practice we could really shave some time off our personal best. :)