Author: Dane Lowell
Submitted by: redadmin

Chapt. 294 - 2,021 words
Columns :: My first month in Spain – Besemé…not even close

Spain, January 21, 2010 -- Comments:   Ratings:
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The Fiesta Queen



A small town in northern Spain, Jan. 21, 2010 -- Well, here I am – where am I?

I’m in the town in Spain that I’ve been trying to get to for three years now!

Am I happy? As my older brother (he’s been dead now for 18 years – another smoking victim) used to say, “am I glad?” Well, he’s probably not – and neither am I. For quite different reasons. At least I’m not dead. Yet.
I’ve cried a lot – for Sergei; for Misha; for Missy my dog. Would they be any better off if I were still in Moscow? Almost certaintly. Would I be? Probably -- almost certainly -- not.

But I’ve been so unhappy, so lonely, that I’m thinking of not coming back to Spain when I go to the States this summer to have a cataract operation, to have my kidney stones treated, to have my heart looked at, and whatever else.

In the meantime, I’m sad. I promised Sergei I would help him come to Spain. I can’t. First of all, I don’t want him in Spain. Not because I don’t love him. I probably love him more than almost anyone else – not sexually; we got past that a long time ago. But he’s been dealt such a raw deal in life. He’s one of the sweetest, most generous, most giving and loving – and most destructive to himself and others – persons that I’ve ever met.

One of the reasons I got out of Moscow was because I knew I had to escape him. But still he calls weekly with money that he doesn’t have from Svetlograd or Stavropole or Moscow. “Hello, honey, I just wanted to hear your voice.” My heart breaks, but I can do nothing. I must do nothing. Fortunately, it is very difficult for a Russian to get a visa to a European country. Not only that, you have to buy your ticket first. That’s at least $ 500. He doesn’t have $ 500 and I don’t have it to give it to him – or rather I refuse to give it to him. I tell him I’m out of money.

He accompanied me to the Paveletskaya Train Station in Moscow, from where I got an express train to Domodedovo Airport to catch my flight. There were others – Sasha, Murab, Sergei’s evil twin brother Andrei, and Misha. But Sergei and I clung to each other the whole time.

I knew it would be the last time I would see him. Of course, I cried. I’m crying now.

Only Misha went with me to the airport.

Ah, Misha, another heartbreaking story. Misha returned to my life in October after six years of bumming around Europe. He knew Russia was a deadend – for him, for everybody. But they finally tossed him out of the European Union. He wanted me to get out of Russia. In fact, he insisted, and went with me to buy my ticket to Spain back in early November so he’d know that I was getting out of Russia.

We slept together again. We sometimes had sex. He again looked after me and cared for me as nobody else had in all the years he’d been gone. And then he got a job and a room. He volunteered to take Missy so I wouldn’t have to put her to sleep. At last I can go to Spain with some measure of peace, knowing Misha was okay and taken care of.

He went with me all the way to the airport. I literally could not have made it without him. Fortunately the plane was late and we needed every minute. I had to throw away 10 kg – 20 lb. – of stuff. I couldn’t have done it without him. Of course I cried when he left. “Everything is going to be all right,” he reassured.

And then two or three days after I got to Spain I got an SMS from him begging me to take Missy. He had lost his job and his room (because of me? Because of Missy?) and was living in train stations in the bitter Moscow cold – down to 30 C below zero – about -20 F. I was crying uncontrollably when I SMS’d him: “I am very sorry. I can do nothing. I am crying. I love you!”

At least Sergei has a warm place to sleep. Where is Misha now? I don’t know. I can only hope that he is alive somewhere, and that somehow in the future he might join me.

And Missy? If she’s lucky, she’s dead. She loved me so much. She was my dog.


A month ago tonight I landed in Spain. Tonight I found out that my household items, which I paid $ 1400 for to have shipped here, are finally at the border.

My arrival was a disaster. As I mentioned, the plane was late, so late that I missed my bus to Ourense with Slava. I spent $ 60 on a hotel and caught a bus the next day to the town where I’m living.

Despite the economic crisis, rents have gone up here, and the only apartment Andrei could find would not be available until almost 10 days after I arrived here. That’s 13 euros a night in a hotel. Not ball busting, but between the 30 euro bus ticket, the 60 euro hotel room in Madrid, and the 130 in the hotel, that’s 230 euros that I could have much better used on something else.

Rent here is quite reasonable, compared to Moscow. 500 euros a month for everything, including utilities and “community” payment. And split two ways, it wouldn’t have been half bad. Imagine my surprise and dismay, then, when my “sis” said that, in conformity to the Spanish bureaucracy, he has to stay in his present apartment with Jose until December of this year. A whole year! So instead of my rent being 250 euros a month, it is 500 euros a month. Quite a different story.

I now have only one student at 30 euros a week – 120 euros a month. My “sis” just passed on to me another student for conversational English. At 240 euros a month, I can afford to live here on my pension and teaching income. I also had about $ 3000 savings in Bank of America, so I should be able to keep that for my trip back to the States.

My re-immersion in the Spanish language is painful, sometimes comical. Frequently I will burst out with a “hello” or “how are you” or “how much is that” only to realize I have lapsed back into Russian. Actually, I think my Spanish isn’t half bad, considering the fact that it was 60 years ago that I last studied it. And I have no one to practice it with. My “sis” insists on speaking English, I don’t need to practice my English. He does.

As I’ve mentioned earlier, the problem is compounded by the fact that this part of the country speaks Andalucian – that is, all the soft “c”s and “z”s are pronounced like a lisping faggot – that is with a “th” sound. To make matters worse, they’re close enough to the Portuguese border to be heavily influenced by Portuguese. So the “x” becomes “sh”. So does the pure “s.” So sí becomes “she.” I first thought they had a speech impediment, but it’s a part of the language here.

Despite my problems with the Internet, I’ve managed to restore email communication with all of my friends in Russia and the U.S., and most of my family as well. Except for my sister who recently moved from Denver to near LA. But I expect I will hear from her soon.

It’s now a week later. I couldn’t finished it. It’s too sad. But in the meantime, my mood has improved. For one thing, my “sis” told me that Elvira, a native Spanish English teacher (she speaks terrible English) has an apartment for 175 euros a month. That will cut my expenses nearly in half, and I can afford to live here on my pension. I have to give my present landlord a month’s notice, so I have to pay the 500 euros for one more month.

In addition, because I’m still a “tourist,” at the end of 90 days, I have to leave the country for three days to get my visa renewed. At first “sis” and I were going to London, but now his “girlfriend” (he’s still hell-bent on pretending to be straight enough to have a child by her) and his parents are coming to Spain the early part of March, and the cost of going to London – in time, not in money – would be exorbitant for him, so now I’m going to Andorra, the little independent country in the mountains of the Pyrenees, for three days on March 10. I’ve never been to Andorra before. It’s a very popular ski destination for Russians because they don’t need a visa to get there – or at least they can buy one very cheap at the border.

So now I’ll probably stay in Spain another year or two. I’ll scout around the U.S. this summer for a likely place to stay (my family has already pretty well ruled out my staying with them, and I sold and gave away everything when I went to Russia, so I have no home to go to in the U.S.) I’m looking forward to my visit with Bob Fletcher and to bumming around the country by bus to visit my old college roommates; family; Orlando friends and ex-wife Elaine; former West Virginia buddy and fantasy, Ned; Greg, son of my now-dead 35-year friend Dave Wagner; New York ex-roommate Syd; my old “ecotage” buddy in Pennsylvania, Sam Love; “Sasha” my ex-Russian lover now getting advanced degrees and working in Ohio; “BB” Harris and ex-fantasy Patrick in Seattle; and Marco the singer and my sister Evelyn in or near LA. And maybe more.

To tell the truth, I’m getting a little homesick for them and for the U.S., something I never was in Russia.

So here I am, for better or for worse. For how long? I can’t say. The sexual prospects here are not good.

Another disadvantage is that I now have time to read, but I have nothing to read! I’ve already re-read the English books I have – Mutual Aid, by Peter Kropotkin; Heroes I have known, by Max Eastman, and snippets of others. But I’m running out of reading material fast!

Some good news on that score! “Sis” just told me I can borrow English books from the university library here.

Actually, I have some other books in my household goods, but I have decided to wait until I move into my new apartment to go to the trouble and expense of getting them.

I said I was never homesick in Russia. There was a time when I was worse than homesick. There was a time after I had gotten the $ 43,000 from the sale of my home in Seattle when I began to realize that Tioufline would do anything to keep his fingers on that money. I thought of going home, but I knew that he would never let me leave with the money. I was actually afraid for my life.
I stayed. I lost the money and my apartment, but I saved my life and had a very happy 10 years there after I got used to the realization that I had lost my money and my apartment.

So I need to revised that: I was never homesick in my last decade in Russia. So maybe I just need a little more time to get used to Spain. Maybe I will be as happy here as I became in Russia. But I’m not counting on it. I’m 10 years older and the pretty boys here aren’t as desperate for somebody to take care of them as they were in Russia.

But we’ll see. Again: Here I am; where am I? At least I’m not afraid – only a little lonely and homesick.


See also related pages:
Chapt. #295 - Remembering Russia
Chapt. #293 - Is capitalism dying? Does Obama know? Am I going to Spain?