We woke up and had breakfast at our "Casa Particular". Maruchi made Mrs. Blue eggs and bacon and she made me a smoothie and both of us coffee (I think she learned on day one that coffee was a necessity, given how big our eyes got when the coffee arrived. By the last day, Maruchi would bring Mrs. Blue two cups of coffee in the morning). The breakfast nook overlooked the bay and the water was very pretty. There were two other women staying in the casa as well, and we learned they were from Norway. We also learned later their sister was staying in a casa upstairs.
We decided to try to dress...more Cuban so we wouldn't stand out as much as tourists, so we dug in our suitcases for clothes that would make us less...bag-lady-American? And more...security-lady-Cuban. As usual, the youthful Mrs. Blue achieved this better than me.
Julie came by and drove us to Old Havana. On the way she gave us a brief synopsis of Cuba's history. I don't remember it, but the timeline was definitely helpful in understanding Cuba better. When I imagined "Old Havana" I imagined something Old. Rundown. Quiet? We were dropped off in a sort of square. And it was loud. Busy. Bustling. Very touristy. And it seemed...newer? There were a lot of hotels, and they all seemed well maintained. I think someone mentioned later that Old Havana wasn't "true" Old Havana, but maybe Mrs. Blue has better memory/perspective on that.
Julie pointed us in the direction of the pedestrian sidewalk/walkway and we left the busy square pretty quickly and walked in that direction. The streets reminded me of New Orleans: lots of side streets with few cars, very busy, lots of shops, old buildings, balconies. We stopped in a few shops and I think we found a market with some tchotchke's as my mother-in-law calls them. We got to the "end" of the pedestrian walk and got very hungry. We sought out ice cream, rather than try to decipher a menu again, and found a place that seemed to clearly sell ice cream. But the "chef" was clearly sitting down and said they were closed. So we went to 2-3 other places but they didn't sell dessert at that time. Being almost a half hour later, we went back to the first place. The chef was now behind the counter and he didn't so much "take our order" as he did "shrug" at us in sort of...expectation. We ordered our perspective ice creams and proceeded to our table. When we finished I asked Mrs. Blue if she thought he wanted money for his 5-star service. We figured we should attempt to pay him, since we were guests in their country. We then bought a map (Mrs. Blue said she would have paid all the "cucumbers" she had for it -- sidebar, Cuban Convertible Pesos, or CUC's, were quickly nicknamed Cucumbers). I think Mrs. Blue's desperation for a map strung from our...somewhat struggling experience of wandering in a new city without cell-phone-GPS guidance. It's hard to find those landmarks without anything to guide you. I'm actually not sure how we lasted that long without the map, given how often we pulled it out thereafter.
I believe after we got the map, we stumbled into the Plaza de Arms. However, we might have been in the Plaza de Arms BEFORE ice cream, and not realized it until after we purchased the map. The Plaza de Arms is also the oldest Plaza in Havana, having been there since the 1520's. It was nice.
I believe from there we found La Catedral de Habana. The square was very pretty and the Cathedral itself was very pretty. I think the sun shone brighter in that square than anywhere else. The disappointing part was that we couldn't go inside. This was especially disappointing for me as one of my favorite parts of Paris, France was a church/cathedral, so I'd been pretty excited to go inside this one. Nevertheless, the outside was still beautiful.
We proceeded on to the Museo de la Revolution. This is a Presidential Palace converted into a Museum denoting the transfer of power from the old leader, who I guess sucked, to the current party/family, the Castro brothers and the Communist party. So I guess the revolution was a pretty big deal. I didn't really have a clear picture of this history until I talked to some of the Cubans a little bit and saw this museum. It was all very interesting. But the museum was more in Spanish than English, so it was hard to glean all the info. But all the windows in the palace were open, which I appreciated, as they provided some very nice views. And as Mrs. Blue said when we were in there, even rooms that were under construction or half dilapidated were still open for you to look at. Again, things are falling apart, but no one cares about that. It's just the way it is.
We went down to the bathrooms on the ground floor. Mrs. Blue went first and handed me a wipe from her bag before I went in and explained there was no toilet paper. (Sidebar: Mrs. Blue's Cuban friend from America advised her to bring all the wipes from America to Cuba, and luckily, she did. They came in handy many times: bathrooms, after eating, after hiking, when I sneezed on the plane on the way home and expelled more from my nose than anticipated and nudged her for a tissue, she said, "What kind?" and I thought, "Gee, I dunno sis, I have snot hanging from my nose, toss me anything." But she luckily just handed me a wipe.) Anyway, toilet paper lacking from bathrooms is a staple fact of Cuba, which I don't think fully sunk into us until the last day? I didn't realize until the last day, when Mrs. Blue asked why none of the public restrooms had toilet seats, that I never used a public restroom in Cuba. And my museum experience is one of the reasons why. There were two bathrooms, both occupied, and I waited outside them for 5-10 minutes. One person finally came out, and asked me, "Are you waiting for the bathroom?" I think I gave her a look like, "No, I just stand in Cuban public restrooms for long periods of time for the experience." and then replied, "Yes." and then she said, "I wouldn't go in there. Its...its just a mess." She stood in front of the bathroom for a few more moments, to really solidify the fact that she really didn't think I should, and I finally walked out. I told this story A. Because it was one of the most bizarre public restroom experiences I've ever had B. As an explanation for why I never used a public restroom in Cuba and C. To spread the word that you should never ruin a public restroom for someone who needs to come in after you. RUDE. You don't know my bathroom desperation level!
So. From there we attempted to find a 5-star hotel that might have better food than our previous discoveries. We found what was possibly the most expensive hotel in Havana. It had a rooftop pool. Spa. Rooms $450 a night and up. The menus did not impress. And they were all very similar for all three of their restaurants. We also asked about their spa services as they were advertised for 10 cucumbers ($10) a service, but the butler man said it was for only people staying there, and Mrs. Blue insists he kicked us out, but I deny that happened. We tried another hotel I think, also not an impressive menu. The third, we sat down in. Ordered our signature Cortado's, and Mrs. Blue ordered "steamed" veggies and mushrooms and I ordered rice with veggies. Mrs. Blue's veggie's were more fried than steamed and her mushrooms were more canned than fresh. My rice also had canned veggies. But. I was just happy not to eat any mayonnaise. I also got some cake and Mrs. Blue got ice cream with flan.
We continued on and passed a hostel and stopped in for more coffee and some water (bottled -- we at some point had a conversation with Maruchi via Baby Maruchi, who speaks more English, about the water not being good for tourists and bottled water being best and to also make sure the bottled water on the street was not tampered with).
We eventually ended up on a long street with a center lane with trees lining it and artists down the side and teenagers hanging out with skateboards. We perused and walked down, Mrs. Blue got a painting. We saw police running at one point but didn't see much action. The word on the street is that Cuba is very safe, a joke we heard more than once is that there are 2 million people in Havana and 1 million of them are police. They are very strict about drugs in Cuba, in that there are none, and also no guns. I can appreciate that. A lot. At the end of the tree lane, we got a cab home.
We had a lie down and then Mrs. Blue announced she found a good restaurant in the tourist book. We took a walk to the restaurant and on the way met an artist who was having an exhibit. He said something to Mrs. Blue and she laughed and she said, "No, just hungry". After he left, I asked her what he said and she said, "He said we look tired and sad."
We found the restaurant and I was encouraged by the nice, new cars outside. It had an open air feel with no walls on the side. We asked for a table. The man grabbed some menus and led us towards what looked to be the kitchen, and motioned for us to follow. He led us back towards...a bar. With walls, no windows, no tablecloths, no fancy dinnerware, loud tvs blaring. (Sidebar: My husband and I once went to one of the nicest restaurants in New Orleans. When the waitress sat us, she passed the full dining room and took us upstairs to a little side room where he mumbled to me, "This is where they seat the 'Riff Raff'" -- Well this bar area seemed to be for the 'Riff Raff'). My sister wasn't having any of this. She walked back into the dining room, found a waiter, and asked if we could sit in the dining room like normal people (she didn't say that, she just asked if we could sit in the dining room). She asked why we were sat back there, and the innocent bus-boy type person just shrugged innocently, not seeming to know. We sat down in a table towards the front, in the open air, and a waiter, who spoke some English, asked what we wanted, and explained their specialty was the chicken. We asked if they had a menu. (Pro Tip: Get a menu. Not only will it provide you some options, it will provide you a price you can actually quote). Not surprisingly, the menu was sparse. I don't recall, but I believe the options were rice, beans, lettuce, and chicken. Mrs. Blue got everything but the chicken. The chicken came with everything else. Shortly after we got our food, a group of elder people came in with someone we realized was a tourist leader guide. She explained it was "family style" and they bring the plates out to share and their speciality is chicken. She also "barked" to the waiter to bring out 18 breads. We did not receive our breads, but we also noticed that while they were getting one plate of beans and rice and lettuce per 3 or 4 people, we had gotten our own. We were curious to know if they were paying the "per person" price or a "group" price, as they never got a menu. I fed my chicken to some cats/kittens that hung around and put the rest in a bag for the way home (they insisted they had no carry home boxes, though we'd seen two people leave with them, they tried to say they didn't have bags either, but Mrs. Blue gave a how-dare-you glare and they changed their tune). We walked home and fed my leftover chicken to the dogs and worked on our huge-ass crossword.
We declared after this experience to strictly eat ice cream and coffee, as we gave up on trying to find "good restaurants".
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