July 28th\/29TH PART 2<\/p>\n
cigars<\/b><\/p>\n
Cuba is very well know for its cigars, and though I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t smoke them at home, nor do I even really know how to smoke them, I still had to give it a shot while I was here. I dodged all the hustlers on the street that kept offering me cheap cigars (which were probably fakes\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 \u00e2\u20ac\u0153hey you! I give you special price!\u00e2\u20ac\u009d), and went straight to the factory. Walking inside the climate controlled room was like heaven seeing as outdoors it was about a trillion degrees. Inside I was faced with trying to decide what to buy out of the tons of different brands and sizes that were on sale. I asked the lady behind the counter to show me some stuff, and ended up buying three different kinds (recommended by her and the guidebook). She even gave me a free one!<\/p>\n
I walked down to one of the many parks around, sat back, and smoked my first cigar. The first brand that I tried was Cohiba, which is supposed to be the best brand in Cuba. It was actually really nice, and I can see why people enjoy it. The cigars cost around 5$ each which isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t too bad I think. In the book I read that it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s also possible to buy \u00e2\u20ac\u0153bodega cigars\u00e2\u20ac\u009d which are the cheaper cigars smoked by most locals (just a few cents each), so I might end up switching to those later.<\/p>\n
Money<\/b><\/p>\n
Money here has been extremely confusing. More confusing than any country I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve been to actually. Cuba operates on two different currencies, CUC which are Cuban Convertibles (roughly a dollar) and CUP which are Cuban Pesos(roughly 4 cents). Prices on everything are usually marked with the $ symbol which never means dollars, but can be used for either CUC or CUP. To make things even more confusing sometimes both CUC and CUP are called pesos, and sometimes CUC are called dollares. So, whenever you see a price, you don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know which currency it might be sold in. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m getting used to it now, but during the first day it confused the hell out of me, and at one point I accidentally bought a pathetic crappy sandwich that even McDonalds would be ashamed to sell for 5 bucks, when it should have cost 20 cents (and the seller tried to rip me off even more by trying to keep an extra 2 bucks of my change).<\/p>\n
The other thing about money is that Cuba turned out to be wayyy more expensive than I thought. I brought along 75$ per day to spend and thought that this would be way too much money. Other than Europe, you shouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have to spend that much anywhere, right? Well, here hotels cost 25$ a night. Meals often cost around 10$. A mojito costs 2 or 3$. Before you know it, your money is gone!<\/p>\n
mojitos<\/b><\/p>\n
mojitos have been one of my preferred drinks ever since Natasha whipped up a pitcher of the swampy-looking concoction at my house. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve decided to drink at least one mojito per day while I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m here, and so far I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m on track. The mojitos here definitely vary though. Some are excellent, some are just sad and pathetic looking, and some come w\/ about three shots or rum in them (ouch!). I went to a bar called la Bodegita del Medio which is famous for being Hemingway\u00c2\u00b4s favourite bar in Havana. They have of Hemingway shaking hands w\/ Fidel Castro, and Hemingway\u00c2\u00b4s autograph is on the wall. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s pretty touristy now w\/ large groups of tourists being led up to drink a quick mojito. Made from a virtual assembly line at the bar. Nevertheless, not being one to shirk my duties as a tourist, I got a mojito there and it was definitely one of the better ones I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve had so far.<\/p>\n
food<\/b><\/p>\n
For some strange reason, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve always thought that Cuban food was hella good. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m really not sure why\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 maybe I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve just heard that from other people. Well, I thought wrong. The food is uninspiring at best, greasy at worst, and sometimes almost laughable. The main staple here is pork and chicken, and nine times out of ten it is fried. No sauce. Often the garnish is a sad little pile of green beans that look like they belong wilting in the gutter and not on your plate. The best part of each meal actually is the ubiquitous Cuban rice and beans which has the not so PC name of \u00c2\u00a8the Christians and the moors\u00c2\u00a8. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve had it a million times now, and though I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m sure I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll get sick of it at some point, I still am enjoying it every time.<\/p>\n
The other problem is that it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s often hard to find food. Seriously, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve wandered around Havana during mid day and not been able to find anything to eat. Restaurants are often randomly closed, or not serving. Places listed in the book end up not existing anymore. Sometimes there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s literally nothing around other than street sandwiches. The guidebook says that you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re likely to go hungry at least once, and I can see why! The one thing that there is a lot of though, is ice cream. Dude, Cubans *love* their ice cream. Everywhere you look people will be walking around with ice cream cones that you can buy for next to nothing. There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s nothing quite like it, especially with the heat!<\/p>\n
Also, another interesting things is the rules that they have here for restaurants. If you open your own restaurant, you cant sell beef or shrimp. Also, you aren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t allowed to serve more than 12 people at once. Of course, people often break these rules, but it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s funny that they exist.<\/p>\n
tourism<\/b><\/p>\n
Cuba is refreshingly non-touristy. You don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t see a million back to back hostels\/souvenir shops\/net cafes\/etc. there are no McDonalds or any other large chains that you usually see everywhere. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m assuming most of this is because of their government. For a long time, all businesses were owned by the state, and even now there is very little private enterprise. Because people can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t make a ton of money off of tourists, they don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t.<\/p>\n
communism<\/b><\/p>\n
Cuba is one of the last remaining communist countries. In the US, the govt makes it seem like Castro is a super evil dictator and that all the people here are totally oppressed and miserable and suffer under the regime. Honestly, I wonder how much of that is really true. People here are super nationalistic, and it seems (at least outwardly) really love Castro, Che, and the revolution. All over Havana I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve seen graffiti praising the revolution, praising Castro, etc etc. when Castro became ill recently, a man on the street told me that him and his family went to church to pray for Castro. Castro\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s photo is up everywhere you look. <\/p>\n
Of course, there is definitely the potential that all of this is forced on the people. It is hard to tell. But, the current govt does have a lot going for it. Everyone in the country is guaranteed housing, no matter how poor. Everyone in the country is guaranteed education, and the literacy rate is like 97%. There is a food ration, and everyone will get at least a minimum amt of food each month. There is free healthcare for all citizens. So yeah, all of the basics are covered. Beyond that, people her earn a meagre 13$ per month which really isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t much, but a lot of basic things that people need are cheap here.<\/p>\n
some other stuff<\/b><\/p>\n
There are no cell phones here. which is shocking because even in tiny little villages in India, cell phones are everywhere. <\/p>\n
There are no big flashy new cars here. In fact, instead there are lots of beautiful and well preserved old classic cars that you see everywhere in the streets. It almost feels like you are back in time sometimes when looking at them. No mater how many of these cars I see, I just can\u00c2\u00b4t get enough. Definitely a highlight of cuba. <\/p>\n
People here wear *very* little clothes. I guess it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the heat, but so many guys here wander about with their shirt pulled up to their chest and the women (of all ages) wear outfits that are pretty scandalous.<\/p>\n
Every day so far, it has rained like CRAZY in the middle of the day. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a million degrees outside and then BOOM, tons of thunder and it dumps buckets.<\/p>\n
Apparently I share the same bday as Fidel Castro, and people get really excited about this when they find out.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
July 28th\/29TH PART 2 cigars Cuba is very well know for its cigars, and though I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t smoke them at home, nor do I even really know how to smoke them, I still had to give it a shot while I was here. I dodged all the hustlers on the street that kept offering me … Continue reading “the capital – part 2”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-776","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cuba"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thisisvlad.com\/werd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/776","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thisisvlad.com\/werd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thisisvlad.com\/werd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thisisvlad.com\/werd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thisisvlad.com\/werd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=776"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.thisisvlad.com\/werd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/776\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":857,"href":"http:\/\/www.thisisvlad.com\/werd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/776\/revisions\/857"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thisisvlad.com\/werd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=776"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thisisvlad.com\/werd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=776"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thisisvlad.com\/werd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=776"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}