Day 3 or Mrs. Blue's Birthday

We had breakfast at the casa: I had a smoothie again and Mrs. Blue had one too, we both had coffees, and Mrs. Blue had a "rich" banana (It was small. So maybe baby bananas pack a punch). Maruchi also shared with us that she prefers the young people and not the "old" people (the Norwegians are older). This day is when Maruchi started to come out of her "shell". 

So we decided to walk to the neighborhood of Vedado, chiefly to see the cemetery. When we told Maruchi we were going to Vedado, she said, "Por que?" Why? We asked her why she asked why. She said something like, nothing to do, just to see. So we asked her if the cemetery was okay. And we got, what we interpreted, as a green light, as long as we didn't go past noon, because thieves. We found this answer confusing, because we didn't understand the correlation between the high sun and thieves, but decided to go with it, since we couldn't interpret any further information for the time being. 

We crossed the bridge from our neighborhood that led to Vedado and a few blocks in, both Mrs. Blue and I both being born in a...rougher neighborhood and both having lived in cities at some point of our adult lives, we both felt an off vibe from the neighborhood. We decided to abandon ship and turn away from the cemetery and turn in another direction. We passed a more populated area, a little market on the ground, and we reached the "center" of Vedado, which was basically a busy street and a line of not interesting shops. We realized what Maruchi meant. So we got a cab to the Hotel Nationale, which Julie had recommended. 

The Hotel Nationale was nice, the lobby was pretty, and Mrs. Blue checked out their bathrooms. But they did not appear to have any restaurant game, and we were hungry. So we went outside and resolved to get some convertible game going. We found a small convertible and decided to see what a Cuban Chinatown looks like. The driver dropped us off at Chinatown, and this is where things got a little Code Red. 

A Code Red is when the Blue Family gets hungry and doesn't get food fast enough. When we travel with our father we always have to pack a granola bar because he turns into the hulk when he goes Code Red. I say nasty shit to my husband when I go Code Red. And Mrs. Blue just starts speed walking (even faster than usual) and turning around in circles when she goes Code Red. Kinda like when you take one wheel off a car and all they can do is turn in towards themselves, still accelerating. 

So when we walked into Chinatown and Cuban people literally started S.H.O.V.I.N.G menus into our faces and listing the items available for consumption like your mother does when you go out to eat even though you have the menu right in front of you, it was just a shit show. Even if you're starving in a desert, you don't want, literally, five menus shoved in your face with a Catholic reading from the book of Chinatown menus read to you.

So we abandoned Chinatown and walked a couple blocks down to Me Gusta. And though Me Gusta was slow going, it was worth it. It was where they hide all the American cuisine of Cuba. I got a milkshake and Mrs. Blue and I shared a pizza. And the day was saved. 

After that we asked the waitress if she knew any places to get pedicures and she gave us some vague directions, and we tried to head down that street, but we found no pedicures, so we continued down another street, which was even better. It looked to me like a true Old Havana street. Buildings were falling apart, they lost their color, but the shops weren't touristy and the people weren't touristy. Mrs. Blue crossed the street to get a picture, but then she spotted a little boy and his bunny rabbit and she asked him if she could hold it, but he would not give up his rabbit for anything in the world. But she did get to pet it. And a few blocks later, the mom flagged us down and let Mrs. Blue get a better hold of the rabbit. That was very nice of her. That's kind of the heart of Cuban people: they don't have a lot, so they *can* be protective and suspicious of you to protect what they do have, but once they see you aren't a threat, they are perfectly happy to share a little piece of whatever they got. 

We ended up in the same square from yesterday, surrounded by the well kept hotels, and we decided it was time for our afternoon coffee and ice cream. We ended up at the same hotel from the day before and we each got some ice cream and a coffee. We took a quick walk to the center lane with the trees and I grabbed a painting I saw earlier that I wanted for my husband, and then we decided that our feet were too tired to carry on, so we'd try a convertible tour. 

In the center of the square sit a lot of older classic cars, a lot of them convertibles, and many people take these convertibles out for an hour or more and have the driver talk to them about Havana. We walked up to the first driver and tried to haggle for a price, but he wasn't meeting our expectations. We walked up to the next convertible just to take a picture, and anytime you walk up to an empty car, the driver will show up, and he did. We haggled a price and he met us in the middle and we hopped in. He drove us to Revolution Square, through Vedado (the neighborhood from that morning), John Lennon Park (Sidebar: There's a statue of John Lennon in a park, and Mrs. Blue and I debated whether or not to get out and take a picture, and then I asked the driver, "Has John Lennon ever been to Cuba?" And the driver grinned at me and said, "No. Castro just like Lennon."), and then we asked our driver for some ice cream game and he dropped us off at a place and waited for us. We also purchased some treats for the road. We also passed the cemetery we had been looking for earlier in the day and it did look as vast and interesting as promised. It was just as pretty from the outside. Then he took us through a lush, green park in the middle of Havana that we had no knowledge of, overgrown with trees and wildlife and with a river running through it. I was a little stunned to see such greenery in such an urban center. It's like being in the depths of central park and forgetting you're in one of the biggest metropolises in the world. Then he drove us back to our casa and took our pictures in the car (all drivers in Havana are professionals at taking your picture in the car, making sure to get all of their classic car in the shot).

We had a long lie down then decided to stick with what we knew for dinner and took a cab back to Me Gusta for pizza and ice cream for dinner. Then, in discussing our cab options for going back to the casa, we decided to try to get an "egg". We luckily snagged one, and though it was the only "egg" ride we had in our time in Cuba, it was memorable. Mrs. Blue will have a picture, as they are one of a kind and indescribable. There's nothing like taking an "egg" down the Malecon of Havana, Cuba at night.

We continued our hella big crossword.