On the Lam"b"

Today finds your favorite illegal alien, still that, illegal. After hustling down to the Immigration and Naturalization Department at a few minutes before ten this morning in order to legitimize my status for the academic year, I was confronted with one very involved line. It began at the door and continued down the block. Upon arriving at what appeared to be the end I found it continued yet again, around the corner and down that street, only to continue in the same vein until it snaked three quarters of the way around the block. I took my place at the end, practically in the Liffey itself, and commenced to stand, and stand, and then to mix it up I inched forward, and then, not wanting to stray too far from tradition, stood some more.

After about 20 minutes of this rollicking good time I found myself about 50 spots back from the front door of the department, the front door to being a legal, upright citizen of Ireland. The taste of liberation was on my tongue (it was a bit like cabbage). The air was suffused with the scent of those greasy little sausages they seem so fond of here. The much fabled Garda card would soon be mine, it would unlock no end of mysteries and delight me with pleasures previously unknown.

It was then that a uniformed officer came out to announce, in a not unsympathetic-to-our-plight-of-waiting-way, "There are no more tickets available for the day and could students please return tomorrow morning at ten. As for the general North African refugees and those not fortunate enough to be cracking the books in this strange and foreign land, too bad, we'll see you on Monday morning. And please, miss, would you stop sniffing the air so strenuously and taking great swallows of imagined cruciferous vegetables, it's incredibly unnerving."

I can't say I am entirely sad for those non-student souls, because if it means standing in a queue without that bellowing Asian woman hollering directly into my ear, in addition to her bawling child doing the same it might not be such an unpleasant wait.

And so, come the morrow, I will arise at something like 6:30 in order to secure a spot on dry land at 8:30 to obtain a much coveted ticket at 10:00 to then stand in another line for an undetermined amount of time so that I might explain why I am both two days late in reporting to their offices and then be told to come back with the proper bank statements and carting a €100 giro, whatever that might be. Whew. I cannot wait and no doubt you are all so jealous I get to have this adventure.