If I were a cat, I could have an EC Passport

And the latest news from Hellenic territory is....
I have a cat. She's damn cute. See?

I didn't intend to get a cat, but she wandered into the dorm one night, and all the kids loved her, and she is quite tiny and helpless, so I just didn't have the heart to send her back out into the cold. I would take her for a few days, I figured, or maybe a few weeks, and then let her outside again. Or maybe I would find a real home for her with someone at Anatolia. In any case, I bought some cat food, and some kitty litter and christened my friend Calypso, in honor of a) James Joyce, who wrote the best description of a cat that I have ever read in a book of Ulysses by the same name, and b) Calypso the nymph of the Odyssey, who was so seductive that she kept Odysseus on her island for nine years when he was supposed to be going home. It's an appropriate name, I decided, because she's a damn seductive cat, as evidenced by the fact that she is now living in my (previously much cleaner and quieter) apartment.

Then I emailed pictures of the cat to my sister, a lifelong animal lover, who announced that she was head over heels in love, and that I must find a way to bring my new roommate back to the States with me after my time in Greece is up. "I am doing research," she explained to me on the phone the other day. "Research on pet immigration laws. I contacted the Greek consulate about restrictions on moving cats from Greece to the US, and whether quarantine is required. They should email me back soon."
"Ah," I said, "Good. You should get a response from them sometime in, oh, June maybe..."
"But I just emailed them now" she explained again. "I already asked them."
"Right." It was the phone version of a nod-and-smile. I have had enough dealings with various Greek administrative offices to know that one must try to communicate at least two or three times before any questions are answered. Sometimes you have to try two or three times before you can even find a person who will admit that it is, in fact, their job to help you. And email is utterly useless; most Greeks seem to regard it as a newfangled curiosity that should never be used for actual communication, especially not if there is a cell phone available. My sister, I figured, would never, ever, not in a million years, get a response from anyone living within twenty blocks of the Greek consulate. She would have better luck discussing immigration with the actual cat.

Yesterday she emailed me. "I have been exchanging emails for a while with someone at the Greek consulate," she said. "They say that Calypso doesn't have to be quarantined. Can I bring her home?"

Just the other day I sat chatting over coffee with some study abroad students from Marymount Manhattan, bonding over our mutual love for Joe's Shanghai in Chinatown and stories about red tape at the New York Greek consulate. (I was definitely given three different versions of the student visa requirements). Two weeks ago, Brad and I went on a wild goose chase through Thessaloniki just to figure out how to pay our required tax fee - I mean, we each had one hundred and fifty Euros to fork over the government, and we couldn't even find anyone willing to take it. To top it all off, Residence permits take so long to be processed that they have almost invariably expired before they are issued, which means that I'm technically not supposed to travel outside the Schengen states for the next eight months to a year. I hear that Greek citizens need a visa if they travel to the US for a vacation, and apparently they can be tough to obtain.

However, my sister emails the consulate about a cat, and not only are they are suddenly communicative and helpful, (not just one email, but multiple emails) but the cat is allowed to go wherever she wants, red tape free. All she needs to travel, according to a friend who is bringing a cat home next week, is a health certificate and a "kitty passport" which costs ten Euros and identifies the bearer as a resident of the European Union. No kidding. What the hell is going on here? Is that why things take so long in Greece? Because people are devoting their time to cat passports?

That said, we have not determined that Calypso is actually coming to the US, we just know that it's legally a possibility. I'm not so sure that my current cats in New York would be thrilled to have a new friend. (And, as exactly thirty seven people have pointed out to me "they wouldn't be able to understand her! She probably meows in Greek! haha!") However, one thing is quite sure- this is one lucky cat. One week ago she was wandering through the cold of the Anatolia campus, and now she has food, clean water, warmth, an international fan club and no travel restrictions.