Holidays in Cuba

Our time in Cuba was well-spent.  Favourite activities included:

• Enjoying the sunshine
• Lying on the beach
• Being "sandblasted" by the blustery ocean wind and sand
• Lying by the pool!
• Eating
• Napping
• Reading 
• Eating
• Watching espn (we don't gots one of them dur movin' picture telemivision thingys, 'member?)
• Eating ice-cream
• Listening to live cuban musical groups
• Making friends with Cubans
• Pretending to part of live cuban musical groups
• Eating some more

All in all, we ate a lot.  And we have the stomachs to prove it.  We're trying to retrain our stomachs to take in its regular amount of sustenance; not all-inclusive amounts.  We indulged in full plate meals - every. single. meal.  

We also took a day-trip to Havana, the capital city of Cuba.  We didn't want to take a group tour as we were already a group of 8 and didn't want to share.  So El don (Eldon) and dad S. asked around, found a hotel grounds employee named Norberto, who said he could hook us up with whatever we wanted.  Dad S. and El don booked a van through the hotel reception instead (good idea, especially after seeing Havana....)

Havana was a city once magnificent in structure, grandeur, and history.  It is still pretty marvelous in history and structure, but it does not have any grandeur left.  In fact, the city is quite dilapidated.   It is very eerie to look upon buildings reminiscent of Europe, Spain, then look to ground level and see stewing, stinky, impoverished homes and people on and around the same streets.  It's strange to see a beautiful building, once a wealthy store or restaurant, or a person's visiting parlour, now a small abode for a family.  The run-down, shabby home just doesn't fit the whole lovely city/building picture.  It's very strange.

The best part about Cuba was getting to know the people, spending time with them.  Brad and I had an opportunity to do this when I decided that I wanted to take in a Cuban handicraft class at the resort.  Turns out we were making bracelets (similar to friendship bracelets!)  Anyway, the person in charge of all the classes at the Cuban house was a young guy named Arian.  We started chatting with him, learned a little bit about his life, how he's trying desperately to learn english, what life is like for Cubans, and such friendly things.  We had a good time.  He also taught Brad how to play the drums (which came in handy for our final evening "hanging out" with the live cuban band... that will be for another post as I don't have any photos or footage of the said event... rats...)