guess who's back, back again...

I'm back in Costa Rica after a week in a hot little island I like to call Cuba.
Wow. What to say in such a short time. Cuba is so different from anywhere I've been... they have beer vending machines! Ok, a lot more than that, but pretty cool, huh? I still don't know what to think about it or what to say. I will tell you what we did there, mas o menos.

We spent about 3 days on self guided walking tours of Havana (which I must say Kristen and I are really good at), getting to know the city. We went to museums, the capitol (which is now a museum), a ¨ballet¨ with sweet dancing, a caberet show at the national hotel, went to a ¨rock¨ show of a guy named David Blanco where I danced with a Venezulan, several cool plazas and parks (including one with a statue of John Lennon - ¨You may say that I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one.¨ So true John.), a few restaraunt-music clubs, several houses i.e. of Simon Bolivar, Jose Marti, Guayasamin, etc., restaraunts in people's houses, and so much more.

Two of the days we went to different beaches. Incredible. I've never seen such clear amazingly blue water. So perfect. It was great. And Kristen and I have the burns to prove it. Oh man. I love the ocean. And we took public transportation buses to the beaches... holy cow... there were probably about 100 plus people on one of the buses. It was seriously so packed that people were basically hanging out of the bus and crowded on the steps. I'm sure I can muster up some pretty ridiculous renditions when I get back if anyone is interested. Definitely a cross cultural exchange. It was fun though.

The other day we went on a bus tour outside of the city. It was cool to drive around and see some of the countryside and mountains. We went in some caves and on a little boat in a subterranean river, saw a huge mural on the side of a mountain, went to a tobacco plantation and a cigar factory, and then had a typical Cuban lunch including sweet live music. Good day.

Man... Cuba is so interesting. So much history. And the people. Wow. I don't even know what to say about the people. We got a lot of attention to say the least. We had several offers for boyfriends among other things. And if we went for about 3 minutes without anyone making kissing or hissing noises at us we began to think something was wrong.

Oh and one of Kristen's friends who was a volunteer at the finca and then has been living and traveling all over was in Cuba already and she came with us for about 3 days on our adventures. She's from Norway and so we talked in Spanish. It was funny to see her get frustrated with everyone assuming she spoke English. She's pretty cool... and has a mohawk. So that drew even more attention. But it was fun.

What a trip. What an experience. What a country.