Author: Dane Lowell
Submitted by: redadmin

Chapt. 231 – 3,969 words
Columns :: Galicia: Land of bagpipes and miracles

MOSCOW, January 16, 2007 -- Comments:   Ratings:


Speaking Spanish in Spain
…Despite Moscow ground transportation
Shopping in “the gateway to the sun”
Zhorik sparks a Spanish orgasm
Introduction to Galicia and a Spanish soap opera
Ourense’s unique and alluring charm
“What ifs” keep sphincter muscle fit
All that worry for nothing



MOSCOW, January 16, 2007 -- Mis vacaciones in Espana eran muy agradables. That’s what I like about the Spanish language: 55 years after conjugating my last verb in Senorita Piedra’s high school class in Orlando Senior High School, I can still remember la lengua well enough to keep from starving.

But what Senorita Piedra didn’t tell me was that in all of Spain, the “z”s and “ci”s are pronounced “th.” She told us it was only in a certain area of Spain, Andalucia, I think.

But it’s universal. So “muchas gracias” becomes “muchas grathias.” And something very difficult – “muy deficil” – becomes “muy defithil.” It was muy difithil for me to get used to saying “muchas grathias,” which immediately marked me as a turisto – if they hadn’t guessed already.

I once heard an explanation of this – maybe apocryphal: The reigning king had a lisp, and to keep from offending him, everybody started mispronouncing the sybillants. But if that were really true, then why don’t they mispronounce the ‘S’s too? Anyway, a neat story.

So as you’ve assumed by now, I made it to Spain. Igor, however, did not. His visa, we were finally told, would be available only after the 4th or 5th of January – the day he was to have returned. Thanks a lot, you MFers. Will I get my 650 euros back? They haven’t promised. “Come back on the 16th” is all we could get out of them.

In the meantime, I’m damned near broke after forking over the bucksi for his visa after spending $ 650 on his ticket and another $ 200 or so to replace the one Andrei cavalierly tore up. So all in all, I’m out somewhere around $ 1800 for Igor’s phantom trip to Spain, proving once again that a fool and his money are soon parted.


Aside from that, Mrs. Lincoln, the Spanish excursion was a lark after I once got to Sheremetevo Airport #2 in Moscow barely a half hour before my plane took off – thanks to Moscow’s abysmal ground transportation system. The mafia, which controls the airport taxi system, crosses the palm of Hizzoner, Lord Mayor of Moscow Yuri Luzhkov, with enough to guarantee that the metro line will never be extended to Sheremetevo.

So there are basically two ways of getting to the airport. A nearly two-hour metro-and-bus ride for about $ 1 or a taxi ride for $ 65. There used to also be an express bus, but we couldn’t find it. So we wound up on the city bus and it took longer than I had anticipated. I was actually surprised when they permitted me to board the plane only half an hour before take-off. I had resigned myself to joining Igor in a not-Spain vacation.

The 5-hour flight to Madrid in the Aeroflot Airbus 320-200 was blessedly uneventful, and we arrived at the immense, architecturally dazzling airport about 10:40 p.m. It must be one of the world’s largest, and navigating it involves a Gordian – but very efficient -- labyrinth of escalators, elevators, stairs, passageways, buses, and metros.

The security force there seemed unduly on edge for a nice, quiet, innocuous metropolis like the capital of Spain. For the first time ever, I was asked to show my passport while leaving the plane! A couple of days later, we found out why: Basque oppositionists (I hesitate to use the word “terrorist” after Putin and Bush have rendered the word meaningless by using it to describe conquered peoples fighting to defend their own homeland) exploded a car bomb in one of the four vast parking garages.

It was midnight before I cleared Passport Control, and – though the metro system extends to the airport – it was too late to take anything but a $ 50 taxi ride to the Hotel Florida Norte, directly across the street from Madrid’s main train station. It was also too late to find any open restaurants, although the guidebooks had prattled expansively about the lively night life of Spanish ciudades – er, thiudades.

The only thing I found open was a 24-hour grocery store across the street, where I bought some yogurt and Kellogg Special K cereal bars both for a late supper and the next morning’s breakfast.


That morning dawned bright and sunny, just like the guidebooks promised. Perfect day for shopping. I did, after all, have to buy presents for all my “family” – Igor, Sergei, Denis, and now Tanya. And I had promised to bring Zhorik something nice from Spain, as well as belated birthday presents for Basil and Peter.


This statue of the symbol of the ciy of Madrid, a bear nibbling on a madrona bush, is the heart of the nation and a favorite place to meet.

I found that the #75 bus – all the buses in Madrid were kneeling buses for the convenience of the passengers -- which stopped right in front of the hotel was a 10-min. ride from Puerto del Sol, “gateway to the sun,” considered the heart not only of the city, but of the nation, and a mecca for shopping. A statue of a bear trying to nibble on a madrona bush (see photo), the symbol of the city, is also a favorite meeting spot, like the statue of Pushkin in the heart of Moscow.

Found the requisite souvenirs for 50 euros and then bought fur-lined slippers for all of my family for another 120 plus a Madrid T-shirt for Sergei. Stumbled across a Dunkin’ Do-Nut shop, the first one I’d seen since they fled Moscow in the wake of the 1998 financial crisis, and couldn’t resist a cream-filled chocolate doughnut.

I also found a coat on sale at half price – 60 euro. I had actually been on my way to buy a leather jacket when Zhorik had SMS’d me to say he’d found an apartment for about $ 20 a night, and I decided to spend my money on the trip to Novosibirsk instead. So this jacket would be my substitute.

What I didn’t find, to my surprise, was any cigars, not even in the two smoke shops I found in Puerto del Sol. Somehow, I had imagined that, with Spain’s historic ties to Cuba, it would have remained a special outlet for the Cuban masterpieces. Not so.

Unfortunately, there wasn’t time for El Prado, one of the world’s greatest art museums, or for the Reina Sofia, which houses Picasso’s 1937 “Guernica,” depicting the carnage of Hitler’s embryonic war machine against the Basque village of Guernica in the Spanish Civil War, and widely considered “modern art’s most powerful antiwar statement.”

Zhorik and I traded a lot of SMSs that day, and I suddenly found my mobile phone out of money, which created big problems, because that’s not only how Ivan and I were going to coordinate my trip to his home in Ourense in the Galicia – that is, Galithia -- region, a six-hour bus ride from Madrid, but also how Igor and I were going to coordinate on my return to Moscow.

Megafon, my Russian server, had no affiliates in Spain, so I couldn’t put money on it there. The only thing I could do was call Igor in Moscow and have him put money on it for me. I called Ivan in Ourense, and we agreed that I would buy a telephone card when I arrived there, and use it to call my apartment in Moscow – much cheaper than using the mobile phone. Fortunately, the calls from Madrid to Ourense were only one euro, so communication with Ivan – even without my mobile -- was not a problem.


When I awoke in my Madrid hotel bed the next morning – my last in Madrid -- I began fantasizing about my upcoming visit to Zhorik in Novosibirsk – so intensely that I managed to jerk off on the sheets. It was my only orgasm between Moscow and Siberia.


My only Spanish fantasy, Sammy, an 18-year-old barman from Rio. Ivan insists the pickings are better in the spring, when the pretty ones start blossoming.

In fact, I didn’t even have a major fantasy except for beautiful 18-year-old Semir (sounded like Sammy) who was working as a barman in the Capri Bar in Ourense. He was very friendly (see photo), and we exchanged e-mail addresses. I plan to send him the photo and establish a long-distance relationship with him when I get time. He is actually a university student from Rio de Janeiro and plans to return there in June.

Why did he come to Ourense in the first place? I didn’t understand his explanation. He said his father died when he was 11 and he lives in Rio with his mother and younger brother. I’ll try to find out more when we get our e-mails going.

When his boss at Capri Bar found out I was American, the conversation inevitably turned to our Great Leader. He brought me a newspaper with the story about Saddam Hussein’s hanging. “It’s horrible,” he protested.

I agreed: “It should have been Bush.”


After I had trundled my two overstuffed bags and a backpack via taxi to the Mendez Alvare south Madrid bus station to buy my ticket for the 10:30 bus to Ourense, I was told there were no seats left. Oh, Christ, what do I do now? I don’t have the money for another night in a Madrid hotel! “But we have another bus leaving at 2:30,” the agent added, which would get me there at 8:30 that evening. Problem solved.

Ivan and his boyfriend Jorge were at the Ourense bus station to greet me and take me to the Hotel Rio Mino, on Pope John XXIII St, a small, family-run hotel owned by a friend of Jorge’s father Diego that charged 25 euros a night, so my Galicia sojourn would cost only $ 150! No problem there.

On the quick walking tour which followed, I discovered that Ivan’s apartment, which was owned by Jorge’s mother, Rosita, was just five minutes away, and that his office and Jorge’s family’s penthouse in the same building, the most prestigious in the city, were another 10-minutes away.

Later in the week, next to the near-by Ourense Cathedral, we came upon a busker playing bag-pipes, which it turns out is the national musical instrument of Galicia. No one seemed to know how or why this strange, traditionally Scottish musical nightmare became Galicia’s chosen instrument. Can’t imagine dancing flamenco to that!

We then dropped into a cozy restaurant for my introduction to chocolate and chorros, the favorite Spanish munchy. The chorro is kind of like a doughnut that never got bent. You dip it into the syrupy chocolate. A very tasty and fattening introduction to Galicia.

Galicia, the birthplace of Julio Iglesias, the dictator Generalissimo Franco, and Fidel Castro’s father, among others, is nonetheless an absolutely charming and delightful niche of Europe, probably unlike any other region of Spain. For one thing, it’s typically cloudy, misty, and green, very reminiscent of Seattle or London. Like Seattle, the people were laid back, friendly, and helpful.

The food is fantastic and cheap. Besides the abundant seafood, it’s also noted for the quality of its veal and beef. Octopus tentacles in a garlic sauce is one of the favorite appetizers of the region. In fact, the two octopus-eating champions in the world are Japan and Galicia.


The exterior of the enormous Church of Santiago, third holiest and most visited pilgrimage in Christendom.

My first meal in the restaurant where Ivan and Jorge usually go for lunch included shrimp appetizers, a huge steak, potatoes, red wine, dessert, and coffee, for 10 euros. Another nearby restaurant offered the same “business lunch” for 7 euros.

And on our trip to Santiago, Rosita said she was going to treat us to a real Spanish meal. For seven euros, we were first served appetizers of octopus and squid; then they brought a Spanish tortilla -- which is really what we would call an omelette – and red wine. Wow, not bad for seven euros, I thought.

And then they brought the steak and potatoes, and after that the dessert – and coffee if we wanted it!

Galicia is also noted as the home of one of Spain’s most prized white wines, Albinino. The Rioja wines from nearby regions are superb and cheap. The locals render a delightful low-alcohol wine beverage by adding one-third bubbly mineral water to two-thirds red wine.

Ivan's balancing act is somewhat precarious. He met Jorge through the Internet in Moscow while Jorge was acting as a sales rep for his father’s, Diego’s, candy factory in Ourense. They became lovers, Ivan went to visit the family in Spain last year, and Jorge talked Diego and Rosita into hiring Ivan to do the Moscow contracts for the business.

They’re seriously planning marriage (gay marriage became legal in Spain last year) and adoption. Ivan lives in the family’s lovely abandoned apartment on Rua de Paseo (“rua” rather than “calle” is “street” here) in the very heart of old town. Jorge still lives with his parents in the family penthouse on the 15th floor of the nearby San Martin building, where the office is also located on the 2nd floor. Jorge alternates with one night at his parents’ and one night with Ivan.

But Diego and Maria still don’t – or pretend not to -- know their Number One Son is gay and that he and Ivan are lovers, though Ivan is treated like a member of the family; and he and I were invited to the family new year’s celebration in their opulent penthouse.

But if they follow through on their plans for marriage, all this will obviously come out. What will be Mamacita’s and Papacito’s reaction?

We surmise that she so adores Jorge that she will actually be relieved that some other woman will not steal him from her. Ivan thinks that Diego’s reaction may be more that of the macho Spanish Grande who discovers that his only son, whom he has been currying to take over the family business, is a faggot.

Diego is a very impressive man. He has traveled the world, speaks five languages, is one of the most respected businessmen in Ourense, and is not only a wine connoisseur, but has written a tome on the metaphysics of wine that begs to be translated into English. He is also the consummate host. I felt thoroughly welcome and at home in his presence – in his office, in his factory, and in his home.

So what will this suave, debonair international diletante do when he finds out his son is queer?

A great Spanish soap opera. Stay tuned.


Of course, this may all be scuttled soon, because Ivan found out, when Jorge contracted syphilis last spring, that Jorge has been having extramarital affairs. And now Jorge has polyps on his asshole, which strongly hints at anal warts. Our last night together, Ivan was in anguish about what he was going to do.

An even better Spanish soap opera.


A panoramic view of Ourense from the winow of Diego and Rosita's 15th floor penthouse. Barely visible in the forecround is the 13th century Roman bridge over the Rio Mino, which still serves foot traffic. Just beyond it is the architecturally acclaimed "Milennium Bridge," completed in time for the Year 2000 celebration.

Ourense – called Orense in non-Galician Spanish -- is an ancient city populated by the Sueves, a pagan Germanic people, in about the 5th century. The region converted to Catholicism after the king’s son was miraculously cured by a visit to Saint Martin’s tomb. The Romans founded the present city of Ourense in the 12th or 13th century around the “Las Burgas” spa fountains on the banks of the Mino River, where – if you wash your hands in the hot bubbling spring water (see photo), you’ll meet and marry your true love in Ourense.

Ivan says he is living proof that it works. As for me, Sammy is my only candidate so far, and his home in Rio is a world away.

An old Roman bridge and roman baths also still remain as part of the Roman legacy.


Another Roman legacy is the Las Burgas fountains at the losest point of the city, around which the settlement was developed about the 12th century. Legend has it that if you wash your hands in the hot waters of the fountain, as I am doing here, you will meet and marry your true love in Ourense. So far Sammy is my only prospect.

Highlight of my Galithian visit was a trip to Santiago de Compostela in Rosita’s red Mercedes. Santiago, Spanish for St. James, got its start when a peasant had a vision about a field of stars – compo stela. And shortly after that the Catholic Church miraculously discovered that the apostle James was buried in that very spot. How or why he got there from Galilee or Jerusalem or Bethlehem or wherever wasn’t explained. It simply added to the miracle.

Despite its dubious veracity, the church managed to parlay it into a PR coup, and now it’s the third holiest and most popular pilgrimage in all of Christendom, taking a back seat only to Jerusalem and Rome.

The cathedral built there in the 10th and 11th centuries and added to in the 16th and 18th is truly immense. The alleged bones of St. James, or Santiago, lie in a gold crypt. The incense burner is so huge that during high mass it takes eight priests and an elaborate system of pulleys to swing it from side to side across the transept.


The Holy Door of the Santiago Church, through which if you manage to enter on the 25th of July of holy years, provided it falls on a Sunday, you get all your sins forgiven. There's reportedly quite a line.

But the icing on the cake is that every seventh year is a holy year, and if July 25th falls on a Sunday in a holy year, you can enter through the Holy Door at the side of the church (see photo) on July 25th, and all your sins will be forgiven – no questions asked.

All in all, Galicia is an absolutely charming and delightful – and largely undiscovered – region of Spain. The reason, Rosita insists, is that it hasn’t been discovered by the Americans yet. “So don’t tell anybody except your closest friends,” she insisted. “Tell them it’s rainy, the food is expensive and bad, and especially that the people are unkind and unfriendly.”

And fortunately, she added, since they don’t have any oil, America hasn’t yet invaded it.

There are several English schools where I could probably get a job teaching, and it is a tempting thought, given all Galicia has going for it. But the boys in Moscow are prettier and my connections are all here. But it’s nice to know there might be alternatives.

Rosita treated me with gracious deference and what I felt was undeserved esteem – I’m only a teacher after all, while she is a well known, well published, and highly respected linguistic researcher. She consistently referred to me not as “Dane” or “Senor Lowell,” but as “el Senor Professor.” I suspect it was due to Ivan’s introduction of me as the English teacher who “taught me everything I know” – clearly a gross but charming exaggeration.

“You have conquered her, sister!!!” he wrote in his last e-mail. “She keeps asking me about you and also wants to know if you are going to visit us again. I gave her your best regards.”

She is truly a very gracious lady and a superb hostess.


Only after I had arrived in Madrid did I take another look at my return ticket to Moscow. When I had bought the ticket to Novosibirsk, I remembered that my return ticket from Madrid was on the 4th, so I opted for a 10:20 a.m. flight on Jan. 5, which I figured would give me plenty of time to get home from the airport on the 4th, hand out presents, pick up my ticket for Novosibirsk – I had purposely left it behind so I wouldn’t lose it or get it confused – and get back to the airport on the 5th for my 10:20 a.m. flight.

But when I looked at my return ticket, it was for the 4th of January all right, but departure was at 11:55 p.m. – nearly midnight! Five minutes before the 5th, the day of my flight to Novosibirsk. If the flight left at midnight and took five hours, and Moscow was two hours ahead of us, that meant we would get back to Moscow about 7 a.m. on the 5th, a scant three hours before my plane took off for Novosibirsk.

Given the realities of ground transportation, there was no way in hell I could get home, grab my ticket, and get back to the airport in three hours. There was only one possibility: Igor must meet me at the airport with my ticket. But Igor has a bad habit of staying up till 5 in the morning and then going into hibernation for the day – impossible to wake before 2 p.m.


On Sunday morning, New Year’s Eve, I woke up in my Ourense hotel bed in a cold sweat thinking about all the “what-ifs”:

What if the seats are sold out on the bus back to Madrid and I don’t make my flight? What if the airport bombing has complicated security procedures and my flight is late taking off, making my connection to Novosibirsk impossible. What if the Madrid airport is fogged in? What if the Moscow airport is snowed in? What if Igor oversleeps? What if…

It seemed to me that it was simply inevitable that with an itinerary this complicated, something would slip somewhere along the line, and all my dreams of a reunion with Zhorik to resume sex, find out what happened to the army bribe money, and decide what future we will have together would be shit-canned.

I was also worried that I might be spending too much money. The ATMs in Spain, like those in Stockholm three years ago, refused to give me account information. I was scared to death that when I went to pay my hotel bill, I wouldn’t have enough money. And what about hotels and food in Novosibirsk?

Those fears haunted me for the next five days, and took a lot of the sparkle out of my Spanish visit – and probably helped account for my gradually rising blood pressure.


But miraculously, nothing awful happened! On January 2, I got my bus ticket to Madrid without a hitch and bought gifts – jeans, shirt, and wool-lined vest for Zhorik and a colorful warm woolen sweater for Igor.

And at 10:30 on Wed., Jan. 4, I paid my hotel bill – yes, the money was there – and Ivan accompanied me to the bus station for the uneventful trip back to Madrid. I managed to navigate the metro to the airport, and killed the next seven hours waiting to board.

In Ourense I had discovered sweet Spanish sherry for less than 5 euros a bottle and had brought two bottles with me. They would be safer, I reasoned, in my back pack. They might break with the rough handling of my baggage. Besides, this way I could nip a little on the plane.

But when I passed through security control, I was informed that either I must go back and fight my way through the lines again to check my backpack or throw away my two bottles of sherry. Ten euros seemed a cheap price to pay, so I came home without my sherry.

To demonstrate the absurdity of the system, the first thing I did after throwing away my two bottles of sherry was to go to duty free and buy two bottles of Grant’s scotch at 13 euros each and a bottle of French pernod for another 13 and carry them all aboard the plane in self-same back pack. Who’s kiddin’ who?

I only got a couple of hours’ sleep on the plane, and we landed even a bit early, before 7 a.m.. The only potential problem came in passport control. I was about 12th in line, but all those ahead of me were dark-skinned natives of the caucuses whose documents were scrutinized interminably. It gave me plenty of time to verify that Igor had indeed not overslept and was waiting for me at Sheremetova One, where my Novosibirsk flight would originate.

It was almost 8 a.m. by the time I got my baggage and found a taxi to take me to meet Igor. But that still left plenty of time.

I realized I was actually going to make it!

The taxi from one Sheremetevo airport terminal to the other cost over 50 bucksi. Highway robbery! But Igor was there, smiling happily and eager to see me. We spent about half an hour chatting before I checked into the departure lounge. He was very affectionate, and it was all I could do to keep from kissing him on the lips.

I also had plenty of time to SMS Zhorik that I would indeed be coming.

(To be continued….)