Cuba is Awesome

Day 1-
We got on the flight to Havana and left around 3pm. Arriving only around 50 minutes later. We had to use a separate airport for international flights, even though it was right next door to the other one. They made it sound like a big deal, but I’m pretty sure it was just another runway/branch of the main one? Who knows. I went through another round of security and entrance stamps and blah and there was a luggage belt. We were told that they would just be thrown on the ground and we would have to find them. FALSE. The luggage belt carried everything around on its merry train-like way. My bag was of course the last one around, but after that we just bypassed all the declared items (people brought 40in plasma TVs, bicycles, everything and they all wanted to wrap everything in plastic like you’ve probably seen, but literally everything was covered in this green cellophane, every luggage/bag/thing was cellophaned and it cost like $15 to do it! Crazy… we were all like… should we be doing this?? But no, unnecessary), so we bypassed the people typing in all these items and paying extra and we went outside where people were waiting to see families and we looked like celebs with everyone staring at us. PRETTY RAD.
We made our way to our hotel/dorm and I took a video the whole time. It was amazing. I really felt alive again… I think my heart never truly left Nicaragua and being back in LAC really gave me a sense of normalcy which is just such a weird feeling. I hope the reverse culture shock this time doesn’t kill me even more than returning from Nicaragua . Everything was beautiful. The roads, the cars, the people, the horse-drawn carts, the graffiti, the signs, the paintings, everything was awesome. The weather is humid, but bearable. There is a wind that comes from the ocean that is just warm and chilling at the same time. The only problem: smog. And lots of it. These old cars just puff it all out and it’s pretty thick here. You can see it in some places and it gave us all headaches walking around the city.
We got to the hotel and it is awesome. Everyone here is awesome and very dedicated to their job. The room is small, but has 2 beds, a TV with cable, a mini-fridge, 2 chairs, a desk, a 3-drawer dresser, a closet, a bathroom and, the most amazing part: AC and sometimes hot water. What? Seriously? No one was expecting this. But, I’ll take it for now. There’s definitely not a lot of room to put away clothes though… I’ll find a way though. I do not want to live out of a bag, that is just the woooooooooooooorst.
We met this couple from the University named Jenny and Ernesto and they are basically going to be ambassadors for us. Jenny is 28, which I found out after embarrassingly asking her age (you’re not supposed to do that in Cuba, ask women their age, but she seriously looks like she’s my age—so I was freaked out when she said she actually taught biology) and she teaches at the university biology and dance. She teaches more traditional dance like salsa and meringue and a few of us are possibly going to join her in her classes o0o watch out people in the US I’m coming back with some fiery latino rhythms and moooooooves, but probably not….but probably yes. We are going to see a movie with them on Sunday, which I might comment on later if it’s an interesting experience or not.
The first night we walked around after a steak and rice dinner and just explored. We were of course beckoned by a few restaurant employees to get us inside, to get us to eat, and we explained we just ate and we had no money, but nope. They were very persistent. We met a cool guy named Dennis we saw again the next day, and he gave us some advice on how to change money (we tried earlier the first night, but they closed to the public). We ditched the poor chap and then we were pulled into a conversation with this man on the side of the street. A very interesting man whose brother lives in the US and he hasn’t seen for many years, but only has talked with him on the phone. He spoke some English and even some Russian, so I tried my best with my one semester of Russian, but the combination of English and Spanish for the day my brain was like que? What? Shto? So everything was kind of a little bleh. But he talked to us about how the US is the most powerful country and Russia is too and how they are awesome and how the US will never fail and yadda yadda and we were just having a discussion. Very heated and very political on the side of the road, our first night in Cuba. Good sign for more to come?
The next day we toured the university and got our student ID cards. We had to get some Cuban glamour shotz and print out these tiny baby pictures of ourselves and glue it to the card… everyone look at your student ID in the US and mine = a paper card with a a stamp on it, some handwritten signatures, and a glued picture of myself. YES. We also got approved for our student visas so we don’t have to flee after 30 days. YES, but means that we are students/have to study… boo. We ate a comedor-esque restaurant that I think was someone’s house… and they just run a restaurant for lunch. It cost me… let’s see (after converting my Canadian dollars which was a fantastic success.. I think I earned a 14-24 cent profit than my other traveling companions, we still don’t know exactly) about 33 Cuban pesos and 24 pesos = $1USD so, less than $2USD. For a whole meal and a cup of delicious juice. I asked a man in Spanish if a certain vegetable was Yuca and he was like no and said something else, then 2 seconds later in English: sorry, you asked if that was Yuca, yes that is Yuca. And I was like oh…thanks… whaaaaat. Some people speak English, but it is very limited and pretty accented. The pro-US/Russia man was pretty good at speaking, he said “frugal” (talking about frugal with his cola, and less frugal with his rum) and when I repeated it, he had no idea what I said. VERY INTERESTINGGGG.
So as of now (3:16pm on Friday, February 04, 2011) ^^ this is what has happened to me. Minus a few details I may or may not fill in, but I am getting tired and crazy from the smog and poor sleep from last night, so I am going to stop for now.

So since that episode of my life I have been just chillin and doin some tours. We did a city tour and went to Habana Vieja which is amazing. it's like a mixture of Tel Aviv, Switzerland, Chile, Nicaragua all rolled up into a Cuban hood. Our tour guide was 'saucy' and awesome and had a necklace with Nefertiti (whaaaaaa). The tour was really cool and she was super impressed we spoke Spanish and she said it was weird for her to give them in Spanish because she is an English PRO. I wish I could post some pix to make this more enlightening, but, I don't want to try right now.

Today we went to the ICAIC which is the Cuban film institute which is responsible for basically everything in Cuban related cinema. It's actually pretty famous so we were all like whaaa we're going to take a class here? Pretty cool. It's based in this ollllldddd mansion that some lady left to the institute after she died... we think. The lady spoke in Spanish the whole time and I was a little sleepy (I took a nap right before the tour mmmhmmm)

Other than that I am feeling normal and missing Nicaragua more than the US. I like hearing Spanish all the time and I like the food and I like everything. going back might suck... OH NOOOOOOO

Vamos a VERRRRRrrr