I'm the younger sibling of Mrs. Blue, and she invited me to "Guest Blog" my perspective on our Cuba trip. First, a little about me, which will have bearing on my perspective. 1. Mrs. Blue and I are often confused as who is older and who is younger (I being confused for the older sibling). This is due to probably: my sedentary physique versus her fit one, my gray hair versus her non-graying hair, her get-up-and-go attitude versus my hurry-up-and-sit attitude, and our differing clothing styles. 2. I don't remember things very well. I took notes at the end of every day, but that's all I have to go on, so my perspective might be much shorter.
Now, onto the perspective.
Day 1: Arrival
We quickly learned there was a difference between "Direct" and "Non-Stop" -- and that flight attendants expect everyone to know the difference. And what I mean by that is, we thought we were flying from our departure airport directly to Ft. Laudy but we actually were flying "Direct" from our departure airport to Ft. Laudy -- with a stop in Austin. We did not get off the plane. I included this incase anyone else would like this nugget of information. It might be helpful for your travels, and you sure as hell won't get any helpful, kind information from your local, neighborhood flight attendant.
Then we flew Ft. Laudy to Havana, Cuba. I was very nervous about customs because A. Everyone and their mother had told me my passport needed more than 6 mo validity on it to travel (our airline, our father, passerby on the street). But I researched this extensively and found this only to be true for certain countries, Cuba not being one of them, so I did not expect this to be an issue. B. I had recently married and the only thing my name was NOT changed on was my passport. I kept expecting them to ask for a second form of ID, find I had two different names, and tag me for a spy. I brought my marriage license just in case. C. You can only enter Cuba for a handful of reasons, "leisure/pleasure" not being one of them. So I memorized a handful of museums for the "educational purposes" reason, ready to recite them to customs.
These things were not issues.
Customs may have confirmed my first name, but he stamped my visa, took my picture, and I proceeded through without issue.
The first thing I noticed was the women working the security. They were dressed in short, tight skirts, fishnet stockings, tight jackets, and tight shirts. All of them. Everyone. I thought for a moment I was confused and this was some sort of exhibit for...sexy people working...sexy security. But it wasn't. It was Cuban baggage security. -- The culture differences between Cuba and the US was one of the things I enjoyed most about the trip. But more on that later. -- The bag scanner was simplistic as was the full body scanner and we proceeded through quickly and with ease.
We went through to find our driver, who our host mama said would be picking us up and carrying a sign. Once we got out of the front door, it was a mix of...the front of a club during daylight and...people trying to win your heart. People were holding signs to pick people up, people were meeting families, and then people were coming up to you to offer you rides. But we saw our driver, Julie, holding a sign, and she spoke English. She advised us where we could exchange money, and we walked back into the airport to do that.
We saw the sign for money exchange and the woman behind the counter was asleep with her face in her hands. We gently woke her and she slowly, unperturbedly woke up. American money is taxed more than any other countries' money (10% tax + the regular 3% tax) so you lose more in the exchange. More on Cuban/American relations later.
We went back out and met Julie and she walked us to her car. Mrs. Blue asked some questions along the way, but I mostly just looked out the window as things became less populated to more populated as we got into Havana. There were a mix of old cars, old classic cars, and newer cars. More on those later. We got to our host mama's house, where she lived next to the a sort of bay in a sort of high-rise apartment. It looked dilapidated from the outside, but so do most of the buildings in Havana. That's just the sort of look of the city. Everything is old, sort of falling apart, but no one notices or cares and it's sort of beautiful the way it is. Our host mama's apartment building actually looked nicer inside. She introduced herself and asked us if we spoke Spanish. Mrs. Blue answered, in Spanish, "a little" and I made a motion with my hand and sliced through the air to signal not at all, and the host, Maruchi, said "nada" and I said "nada". Mrs. Blue was the primary communicator.
We put our bags in our room and then Julie offered to drive us to a place she knew for dinner, said her kids liked it, it was called Cafe Fortuna. We said sure. It was a few blocks away. She dropped us off (for free, she told us up front, you always negotiate the price before you get into any car, very crucial, most cars don't have a meter). We walked in and immediately noticed this place had character. I think it was advertised as Italian? But what we noticed was the seating. Inside options included inside a carriage. In front of a carriage. Inside a tub. On top a toilet. We were offered a seat at a sewing machine. But it was a little tight, so we asked if we could sit outside, and the nice man in the sailer uniform (all dressed in tight sailor uniforms) brought us outside. We took a look over the menu and tried to make sense. I ordered what Mrs. Blue translated was a "cold salad". She ordered something about a tortilla? And something else we couldn't quite translate. We also ordered Cortado's (coffee's with milk, sometimes, when we were lucky, condensed milk). We received our Cortado's. I received pasta with mayonnaise. Mrs. Blue, who does not eat gluten, received bread with butter, and honey? And also an omelette. It was not entirely a successful order. But we were hungry. The view was nice, as it was on a balcony overlooking the bay/ocean. We also had a view across the street of a dog that would occasionally come out onto the roof. But we had forgotten a camera. We paid and food there (in Cuba) is very inexpensive. And then we opted to walk home to take in the sights.
We passed a movie theater called "Karl Marx" (we used this landmark every time for our cabs in the future to get home). We saw a couple of dogs, one followed us for quite a few blocks. We also saw a government mansion. We asked if we could go in. The people standing outside promptly and easily said "no". (Government buildings are easy to spot: they are never dilapidated). When we got back we worked on our giant crossword. We worked on it for at least a half hour every night and I still don't think we got halfway through.
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