21 March 2010

Wow. March 21st already? Is anyone else in shock because of how quickly time is passing? Today was a relaxed reading day until the evening when I took a maquina into town to meet Katie and some friends from FEU by the Capitolio building. About halfway through the ride we stopped to pick up another passenger. He stepped in with a HUGE cake which read ‘Happy Birthday Josefín’ in Spanish. It was covered in frosting roses and was very pink. My guess is that it is for a quinceañera, a 15th birthday party. Quinceañera are celebrated seriously here. The girls wear really detailed gowns of pink or pastel colors and ride on the back of the old convertible cars through the town accompanied by the loud honking from the driver. They also take pictures in the squares or by the most iconic sights. I have never been in a place where they were such a big event, and it is a lot of fun to see them and be reminded of them.
I got there a little early and was reading Noam Chomsky’s Hegemony or Survival on the steps. A tourist walked by (probably Canadian, or perhaps American and commented: “good book, isn’t it?” It is and I would recommend it to all.
Anyway, I met up with my friends and we went to the national theater, a gorgeous antiquated theater, home of the National Ballet (and I think the opera as well, though I’m not sure). These places didn’t open their doors to Cubans until recently, which is a little hard to swallow. Now Cuban’s pay a small fraction of the 20 dollars the tourists pay. The show we saw was folkloric dance. The African influences were very strong in the music and movement. It was entertaining and a needed break from the reading which I returned to at the hometel.

10 Marzo 2010

Today is Katie’s Birthday! And my dad’s too for that matter. Happy Birthday everyone! So we’ve planned some surprises. I got up early and made French toast and then we all headed over to third world underdevelopment and politics. Throughout the day there were more thrills such as the powerpoint background in class and some chocolate. Veronika and I went to pick up the cake after Spanish along with some laundry we brought it back in a maquina and at every bump (of which there were many) I gasped. I spent much of the afternoon drawing on notebook paper for decoration of our wrapping paper tapped with duck tape none less! Then we had cake and presents with some fresh coffee. Later we took the bus to Jazz café, where there was some afro Cuban jazz. The food was delicious, the mojitos were fun and it all added up to a great night. Highlight presents include: the dinner of course, a dominoes set, Cuban coffee cups and some local crafts.

Written 1/30/10

This morning we met Katya at 10 to go to a food market. Finally vegetables!! I wouldn’t recommend any vegetarians travel to Cuba because I think it would be something between difficult to impossible to survive. As it is, I’ve felt quite deficient at the end of the night- though this may be just an adjustment to being active during the day, and eating less than my normal gigantic meals and constant snacking. After we finished we brought our buys back to the aparthotel. Cucumbers, carrots, lime, small bananas, sweet potato, rice, cinnamon, hot peppers, papaya, garlic; of for a meager 8 dollars. As I write I’m sitting in our living room/kitchen after a meal of diced cucumbers carrots and avacado with lime accompanied with sticky rice and a small bit of beef. It was a very good, light meal. And on the subject of light meals…
After our market adventure we wanted to take a maquina towards the university to get a sense of our best transportation option for Monday morning (the bus took about an hour, but only costs 5Cuban cents!) Anyway as we waited to hail a machine a smaller, newer car pulled up and agreed to take us. This is Cuban hitchhiking. A small fee is expected, normally for the same as a machine would have cost. Several blocks later our driver (a very friendly and fluent man married to a Parisian) asked me to switch with one of the girls in the back. We did. A few blocks later, he said “my back tire is flat, I can take you to 23rd as promised, but not all the way to J”. We said that was fine- there isn’t much we could’ve done and a few blocks later we got out. And people wonder why the world sees us as fat Americans? Despite all this, and another unofficial taxi ride later, we arrived near the university and commenced to wait in line for an hour at the creamery for ice cream.
There is a central ice cream joint for local Cubans where you wait for up to two hours for five scoops of ice cream for, wait for it, five cents a pop. So after our 25cent ice cream lunch we decided to wander. Eventually we caught a maquina back to the hotel to prepare dinner-which brings us full circle.

I hope this blog will become less of an update of daily events, and more specific- hopefully more interesting- posts on my thoughts. I’m so excited to find a routine for my new Cuban lifestyle and for that reason for classes to start. If any readers, aka mom dad or Isaac have any requests, either for me to go try to find things and blog about how they were, or to hear about say, the food, the people, my trip-mates, politics etc etc, let me know. For this first week I’ve pretty much just explained my actions as I try to find my feet here. Up to this point, I’ve been extremely impressed with this country. My first impressions are that Cubans are a resilient people, friendly, and hard working. The island itself is gorgeous, but built as close to the ocean as possible; in fact they have lots of problems with erosion by wave action on the Malecón, but it hasn’t been built up since the 1940s or 50s. More reflection later, we are now going out for the first time here.
…which was pretty entertaining. It was pretty much a club with a swimming pool in the middle. I spent the night clutching my chair or the wall trying not to fall in the pool to avoid becoming the laughing stock of ‘Don cangrejo’. The nicest part was that the back of the joint was adjacent to the ocean. I love being by the sea, it really is a calming thing, I love its consistency, motion, and the soothing sound of the waves. Anyway, we made friends with the bouncer who is evidently a champion boxer and wants to give us a lesson, danced with the professional dancers- I can not even begin to understand the way they move their bodies, and got a cab home. It is now four am. Time for bed, like, 6 hours ago. Goodnight!