Author: Dane Lowell
Submitted by: redadmin

Chapt. 300 - 1,813 words
Columns :: Fiesta Queen

Galicia, somewhere in northern Spain, April 7, 2010 -- Comments:   Ratings:
Average members rating (out of 10) : Not yet rated   
Votes: 0

I'm now an illegal alien.
Friday was 'el Dia de San José in Spain.
I continue to get e-mails from my friends and students in Russia.
Just got back from Lisbon.



Galicia, somewhere in northern Spain, April 7, 2010 -- I’m now an illegal alien. That’s what the guy at the police station told me when I went to explain why I didn’t get my passport stamped at the Andorra-Spanish border.

It turns out that, though Andorra isn’t a member of the European Union, they have an agreement not to check passports from European Union countries. So it wouldn’t have made any difference if I’d screamed bloody murder at the bus driver. The border guards still would have waved us through without stopping and getting my passport checked. I might have been taken off the bus as a deranged passenger, but it wouldn’t have helped my passport situation.

“What do I do now?” I asked helplessly.

“Don’t worry,” he said reassuringly. He pointed out that I’m not the kind of person who would be stopped at random on the streets by a policeman and asked for my passport.

This isn’t Russia.

“But I’m planning to go to Portugal the first of April,” I objected.

“We have the same kind of agreement with Portugal. They won’t check your passport.”

So I’m safe. The only possibility is that they won’t let me back into Spain when I come back from the States. But I have a while to worry – or not to worry – about that. In the meantime, I have to start thinking seriously where I can live if they won’t let me back in. The United States? With whom?

Russia? Ditto.

I now know what it’s like to be a “man without a country.”

Friday was “el Dia de San José in Spain. And who was San José? Why the father of Jesus, of course. Except they don’t call him the father of Jesus in Catholic Spain. Everybody knows that God was/is the father of Jesus, and whoever heard of St. God’s Day? So they explain Joseph as simply the husband of Mary, the mother of Jesus.

Incidentally, I’ve got some skinny on why Jesus is referred to as “the son of Mary,” and not of Joseph. It comes from a book published in the mid-‘30s by a guy named George Lamsa, who was described as an ethnologist and Aramaic Language expert 80 years ago, when that still meant something. Aramaic was, after all, the language of the gospels; and in pre-World War I Assyria, where Lamsa was born, they still spoke the language and practiced the customs of Biblical times. Now, 100 years later, after two world wars and the “liberation” of Iraq, everything is changed.

Anyway, Lamsa explains that in those days, when Middle Eastern tribes were trying to populate as fast as possible and when every normal heterosexual guy had several wives (and if he was still alive, he was considered heterosexual; if he was found to be homosexual, they stoned him to death, as they still do in much of the Middle East), it was customary to identify a person as the son of his mother; it wouldn’t pinpoint him to identify him simply as the son of his father. You had to know who his mother was.

Why do I have the book? I bought it 50 years ago when I was planning to become a Methodist “Minister of the Gospel.” Because it’s a good book and probably impossible to find now, I’ve carried it with me on my peregrinations throughout the U.S. and now a good part of the world.

Anyway, because the Catholics believe José kept his mouth shut about who the father really was, the Catholics made him a saint and celebrated him on Friday.

Joseph – José, get it? But Pepe is the short nickname for José. Where do they get that from? Makes about as much sense as Bob for Robert or Bill for William or Dick – Dick? -- for Richard in English. At least it’s not slang for the male sex organ.

Anyway, what do you do in Spain if your name is José? If you’re alive, you get presents and special recognition. If you’re dead, you get a visit from your descendants at the cemetery and they pray for your soul. In any case, in this part of the country, all the stores are closed and it’s a public holiday. So I had to buy my frozen monkfish and canned green beans on Thursday so I’d have something to eat on el Dia de San José.

On Sunday night Drushka spoke with José, who is on a business trip in South America. He told José about my problems with the visa, and José said “no es problema.” Just save my receipts, he advised me, and when I come back into Spain from the U.S. next summer, explain what happened. Andorra clearly qualifies as a non-European Union country, and everything will be all right.
José has his eye on getting a bureaucrat’s job in Spain, and keeps up with this kind of thing, so I think his comments and advice are valid.

I continue to get e-mails from my friends and students in Russia, Slava bogy (that’s ‘thank god’ for you monolingual folks, which I find myself rapidy reverting to now that I’m not using Russian every day). I got an SMS (text message) from Zhorik saying that he was getting married today. I congratulated him (and realized I had misspelled it, which only proves my point that I am reverting to monolinguism).

I think back to the time when he was just going into the Army and asked me to wait for him. I did, sort of, and what a mistake that was. Another one I’ve thrown thousands of dollars away on. To make matters worse, he’s also an alcoholic. I feel sorry for Svetlana, the poor girl who’s marrying – and no doubt supporting –- him, or soon will be.

But I also had an e-mail yesterday from Maxim, the very handsome lad who first became my pupil at the Institute of Diplomacy three or four years ago, then became my private student when he finished the course. I’ve long had a crush on him, so imagine my surprise when he told me yesterday that “he missed me very much.” Of course he also asked me to proof a paper for him in English, which I’ll be glad to do.

I wasted no time in firing back an e-mail to him, using for the first time, “Dear Maxim” and ending it with “love,” which is common American style, but the Russians don’t use it. They start out with a simple “hello” and end with, if a complementary close at all, “respectfully.” But I got another e-mail from him today. He didn’t take the hint. There was no “Dear Dane” at the beginning and no “Love” at the close.

Ah, well, I haven’t given up on him. I think there’s a good chance yet that he may come to visit me, and then I will put all my charms to work. For one thing, if he stays here, we’ll have to sleep in the same bed. There’s only one!

Drushka thinks they’re age-conscious here, which they certainly weren’t in Russia. Makes it much more difficult to connect with a boyfriend here. But we’ll keep trying. He also thinks I’m looking at the wrong income group. I haven’t really come across any young Spaniards who were poor, starving, and homeless, which many of my Russian boyfriends were. Just goes to prove I’ve been “Lookin’ for love in all the wrong places.”

Aha! Maybe my efforts are paying off! Got another email from Max, with two attachments: A final paper in economics for him and one for his friend Anzel, whom I met when Max invited me to his apartment where his mother had fixed yummies for me, and Max had invited several friends, including Anzel, who is from Chechnya.

He wanted me to proof them. I did. He wrote back, “Dane, I love you.” He “loves” me? Yippee ti yi yo.

I wrote back, “I love you, too. Love, Dane.”

The next letter he wrote ended, “love you much, Max”! And that’s the last letter I had from him before I went to Portugal. We’ll see what the next one has to offer.

Just got back from Lisbon. I’ve been wanting to go to Lisbon ever since, in the World War II movie Casablanca, Humphrey Bogart’s girlfriend and her husband flew off to Lisbon from Casablanca. And Now I’ve been there.

I wasn’t disappointed. It’s certainly got a hell of a lot more going for it than the city in northern Spain in which I’m living. But probably the only thing it doesn’t have going for it which is what I need most is the economics in my favor. The homes are beautiful. There was an old section called “Barrio Alto,” or high neighborhood, which is very old and very beautiful. We went to hear “Fado” in an ancient restaurant there which had been reviewed in the New York Times. Fado is Portuguese folk music, which I would call a cross between Spanish folk music and American blues. Anyway, it’s interesting, and we – Drushka and I – enjoyed it, though the restaurant was a bit of a rip-off. We also walked a lot, had bus excursions, and rode a funicula up Barrio Alto. All in all, a fun trip, but no Portuguese sex.

A fun trip, but all fun things must come to an end, which our trip to Lisbon did on Sunday evening.

On Monday, I met José and we went back to the police department. Nothing has changed. I’m still an illegal alien, I still need to “lose” my passport in America and get a new one so that my failure to renew my tourist passport doesn’t show up.

José’s pal, the police honcho, said we should go back to the government office on Tuesday, which we did, with the idea of becoming formally a Spanish resident when I come back from the States this August or September. It turns out to be rather complicated for a “path of least resistance” kind of guy like me: I have to get the Social Security office to start depositing my checks in a Spanish bank; I have to go to the Spanish consulate in Boston or Chicago; I have to get a statement from the Atlanta police that I’m not a criminal in the U.S.; I have to get a driver’s license and show that I’ve been living with Robert; and I have to get a medical certificate showing that I don’t have any communicable diseases. And then maybe I can get a Spanish residency permit.

What can of worms am I opening here? If someone in the States begs me to live with them for half my monthly social security check, I’m very likely to do it. This is too much like work!


See also related pages:
Chapt. #301 - Lord, I’m comin’ home
Chapt. #299 - Renewing my visa (maybe) in Andorra


This day years ago:
2007-4-8: Chapt. #243 - Missy “resurrection” inspires Easter celebration