Mendes remarks

[Rosina Lila]

Custom restrictions and difficulties in border-crossings are not totally unrelated to the Camino, since in order to go to Spain, and come back, one must navigate the new onerous difficulties... some of which do not appear to have much to do with anything.
For instance, the post offices in Spain have special mailing boxes for anything, including some very handy ones for sending bottles of wine, or Orouxo (the Galician liqueur).  While in the process of sending a few packages of books and other things to myself from Santiago to New York City, via the "economic" route, that is, by ship, the post office clerk had to go through a slew of new restrictions on packages going to the States, and he informed me that, among other things, bottles of wine and such can no longer be sent.

I lost friends and acquaintances on 9/11, and was much involved in the horrowing aftermath in the city, as some of you know. I couldn't possibly be more concerned about our safety; yet, a lot of the recent going-ons do appear to be unrelated overreaching for a purpose that escapes my comprehension.
I've been in and out of the country  quite a few times in the last three years and never, ever, have had the slightest difficulty with USA customs, luggage inspections, etc.  But coming back from Venice about a year ago I had to transfer planes in Frankfurt and the ordeal in that airport was plain  awful.  My carry-on bags were minutely gone through, I was made to shoot my photographic camera to demonstrate that it was, in fact, a camera; my small radio CD player was broken, perfume bottles were open, etc., etc.
At JFK airport in New York they sell some round chocolates in slender tin cans, about 3 inches in diameter, with the Statue of Liberty stamped on them; I had a few of them with me to give as presents... well, I was made to open every single one of the small tins, tear out the foil-wrapping and break the chocolate tablets in half to make sure that they were, indeed, chocolate!
Further, the "inspectors" were demanding, dictatorial and unnecessarily rude.  And I was just passing through from plane to plane!
I guess when some authority gets out of hand there is no stopping it.... and such danger, I think, is what constitutional protections are all about.
On the good side of things: there is now a direct flight from New York to Venice, and viceversa.... (thank heavens!).... so one need not fear the possibility of repeating the Frankfurt ordeal.
And, except for waiting in line to go through passport control, the process of going into the European Union through Spain and Italy is a breeze and the people in those two dear countries couldn't be nicer.

I've had the pleasure of meeting Fr. Genaro Cebrian Franco, the new head of the Pilgrims' office in Santiago, and his brother, Juan Jose, who is in charge of the Sociology Dept. of the Santiago Archdiocese (and who has written about 25 books); both are frequent visitors to the USA for lectures, meetings, etc. and they tell me that they have never experienced any unpleasantness or discourtesies on the part of our customs people. I was very happy to hear that.
They are also very thankful for the funds that we contributed to the new computer system which is, indeed, up and running.
I'll have much to write about it later.
Regards!
Rosina
Rosina