Cienfeugos

OK I'm going to start with excuses.  The internet in Cuba is not easy.  I throw down the words in a hurry as you only get a few minutes before it crashes.  So you have to live with less punctuation and more typos than I would like.

Cienfeugos is very pretty.  Everything happens around a large square devoted to some revolution or other they have had.  It is the first town Fidel came to on his march from two years in the hills heading for Havana.
The whole town is painted in variations of pastel colours.  The buildings are all large and like Spain they wrap around a central courtyard. 

It was really hot yesterday and being Sunday it was quite.  On Saturday nights everyone parties.

It is pre-hurricane season and every afternoon a storm rolls over.  It has been very dry and yesterday was the first time the storm broke and it rained.

It was fun, the clouds were amazing and they rolled over and over really low.  All the local kids came out and were running along and sliding on their bellies on the tiled footpaths.  It poured for half an hour so we went up to the roof to watch.  We can see over the whole town and as the pastle buildings got wet they looked even more like doll houses. 

They it cooled down and by eight o'clock most of the town had come out to play soccer in the park or wander the streets.

Everyone is beautiful and they all pour themselves into tight fitting clothes.  Hugo boss T-shirts seem to be the thing for the men and bright jeans and singlets for the women.  I have never been to a place where everyone is so attractive.

And so it begins, from eight until three in the morning there is music on the street and people wandering.  I have not stayed up till three in the morning for many years so I am very glad of my earplugs.  Even so, the other thing I have found with Latina women is they can be loud and I woke to laughing and Benny More music blaring out side on the street.

You just have to get up and join them .

Out of time.  Love Ya.

Dancing

Cubans dance from the waist down and it doesnt matter if they are eight or eighty they are so damn sexy. 
I have always thought that I could dance pretty well until I tried dancing with a 70 year old guy in the Plaza yesterday.  He started moving and I joined, trying to move from the waist down like he was and I looked like a chicken having an epileptic fit. 

I worked out that if I closed my eyes and couldn't see me or him it felt better.

I'll work on it,  there are so many opportunities.

We have headed out of Havana to Cienfeugos birthplace of Benny More.

It is very quiet, firstly because it is Sunday and secondly because it is 35 degrees.

It too is gorgeous.  I'm loving Cuba.

It's Saturday

It is market day and everyone is out on the street.  We decided to head for Centro Habana to check out some of the old buildings and one of the best restaurants I have ever eaten in.  Most restaurants are state owned but this one is privatized and is on the world food map.  It was divine.  I sat there working out how many more meals we would have in Havana and how much of the menu I could get through. 

Have I mentioned Havana is gorgeous?

The people are really friendly.  But I have noticed that there are loads of really attractive police people around and when they stop anyone the civilian looks very worried.

They seem to be there to keep locals away from tourists.  When you do get a chance to talk to the locals they tell you that there is no freedom here.  Cuba Libre................

Havana again

Every Cafe has a band playing and they are all good.  Pity the main fare is pork or ham or chicken and cheeswe.  And the portions are seriously ridiculous.  We have worked out that two meals a day aqre enough and we are still feeding all the taxi drivers.
Everyhting with wheels seems to be a taxi.

I am sitting here in a very swanky hotel which is one of the few places you can access the very slow internet and the band has just started playing .  You can't help but move your hips to this sound.

More Havana

In olod Havana they are restoring all the old buildings and every second one is a great museum to all sorts of things.  Most are to do with the revolution.  We strolled in and out of them all day.  Then we would rest in the Plaza or park or Cafe.   I managed to find the chocolate shop within an hour of hitting the streets.  The smell was amazing and the chocolate was better.  With all the other food I'm eating I am starting to fill out my lycra very nicely.

I don't blend in very well, the Latina women only come up to my shoulder and there are very few blondes.
As I walk along the men make kissing sounds or say things that I don't understand but I hope are nice.  They are not hassly or rude so I have decided to go with Renuka's advice and suck it up.  There should be more of it.  Share the love.

Havana Vieca

Havana is gorgeous.  The big buildings remind me of Paris.  The narrow cobbled streets remind me of Rome
It is gorgeous.  Give me crumbling beauty over modern boring anytime.
The people are all beautiful.  The women all seem to have melonous breasts stuffed into lycra a size too small and the men all seem to have butts you could bounce a Peso off.  At least the ones I notice. 
We checked into our Casa Particular.  Two rooms in Maria's house just off the main drag.  Then headed out for dinner.  We ordered a starter and main each and were given enough food to feed ten people.  We left with most of it and found six taxi drivers hanging on the corner to give it to. They couldn't beleive their luck.
After depositing Quinn with Maria we headed to the Jazz Club for a dose of Roberto Fonseca.  He playes ther on Thursdays.  But this week he is touring.  Bugger.  When you lay eyes on Roberto you know God is a woman.  When you see him move you know she was a lover when she made him.

Havana

The first thing I noticed were the cars.  I had heared and read about them, but in the flesh they are even more fantastic.  They made me smile.  The second thing I noticed was, it's Mango season.

Cuba

Air Cubana. I was impresed that everything was going so smoothly.  We were on the bus to cross the tarmac on time.  Then it started to go pear shaqped.  The bus didn't move for 20 minutes.  Then they gave up and took us to the plane.  MMMMmmmm  it was a second hand Russian built thing, made when flares were in fashion the first time.  We got on through a hole I had to fold myself in half to fit through, past a toilet that smelled like the seventh level of hell and onto a lumpy seat.  I had the window, yay. Until it became evident that we were not leaving in a hurry.  The sun co0ming through the window started to burn.  AQfter fifteen minutes I had steam coming off my thigh.  After 45 mins there was smoke.  After an hour and 15 some guy strolled on into the open arms of the hotessesses, who called him captain.  He sat in the second row which inspired confidence. 
We took off for an hour flight and I think my worrying kept the plane in the air.  That's four flights down.  Four to go

Mexico

Quinn omited in the taxi on the way to the airport, so I spent six hours stinking of stomach bile on the way to Cancun.  Fun.  Now any time we get in a taxi he has to wear a plastic bag hooked over each ear.  It is amazing what you an get a kid to do when you threaten to take away the DS.

Mexio is warm, hot even.  Whih makes it a ery sleepy plae.  Hey I love this omputer as I type I find more and more keys that don´t work.  It will disuise my bad spelling beause you will not know what I hae misspelled, waht is poor typing and what are just missing letters.  Good.

I slept the sleep of the dead, woke up and fell onto a massage table for an hour then threw myself into the Carribean Oean, ate Catus at a restaurante called 100 percent natural and am now feeling about 64 perent human.

I find myself mixing the 25 words of Spanish that I know with Indonesian, which onfuses the hell out of anyone I speak to.  Then I smile and say OK we will have to speak English, beause any locals English is better that my Spanish.

It is very handy traveling with someone who speaks four languages and knows Latin.  Apart from him also being able to carry heavy bags. 
Even Quinn´s Spanish is better than mine and he learned from Pokemon cards.

We are staying in an Eco Hotel in the middle of Canun ity.  It is just what I need, I reharge in a garden and this one is beautiful.  It also makes me feel better about not paying the arbon tax on my airfare.

Food, fooooooood.  I am working on a fabulous muffin top and the Burkah is working well.  Mexican food in Mexico is great, as opposed to Mexican food anywhere else.  I want to try eerything I have never eaten before and we are only here for two days. 

The city was definately the place to stay, the beahes are beautiful but are bound by wall to wall massive hotels.  Kind of Gold Coast meets Kuta but bigger.

The pool is calling and I´m sure I can hear more food.

Adios!

Shopping

Shopping, when you pour your arse into the perfect pair of jeans, is heaven. But how often does that happen?
The hours of dragging clothes on and off in between those heavenly moments you just have to look at as a workout to get your arse into those perfect jeans when you find them.
Those hours can make you descend into depression faster than getting the credit card bill.
I headed onto the street today full of hope and glory, only to have it slowly eaten away the more I tried to buy. At first you think ok I've put on a couple of pounds, I'll lose that and fit these clothes next week. Then it's, oh that designer just doesn't suit me, then it gets to, geez how can anyone look that bad.
Then jetlag hit, I found myself trying to tell myself that this actually looked ok, or not, then realized it was a five dollar singlet and if I did decide I hated it I could just throw it away. At least I had found something. I bought it with no sense of satisfaction and stumbled out onto broadway and realized that it was still daylight.
I wandered on in the vain hope that there would be something somewhere I could look tolerable in when I spotted Dean and Deluca's.
It takes your breath away. Pastries, chocolate, nuts, breads, cheese. Oh, - the cheese. Finally something that would fit me. In if not on. I walked out staggering under the weight of all the goodies thinking, ah well, somewhere in this great city there must be a gorgeous Burkah that will fit.

It's not what you know.

After a day of shopping I dragged my aching pins into the apartment and fell onto the sofa.  As I was sinking into the downy softness and thinking sleep, sleeeeeeeeep, - the phone rang.

Carmelo had told us on Sunday that Elvis Costello was playing at the Beacon Theater on Monday night. Three sold out shows this week.

Jane had asked us if we wanted to go and called someone saying "what would it take to get tickets to tomorrow night?"   Then we all forgot about it.

I picked up the phone and it was Jane saying the tickets are on the way, you have an hour to get to there.

My heart sank, I was sooooo damn tired my eyeballs were bleeding, so my first thought was, we'll scalp the tix, or just walk onto the street and give them away, the third thought was, "are you crazy? Get moving!"

So washed and dressed we dove into a cab and walked into the theater just as Elvis walked onto the stage.

We knew the tickets would be good and were ushered to the sixth row with huge grins on our faces.

Elvis is so much fun,  he had a huge spinning wheel on stage with all the song names on it and would get people (women mostly) to come up and spin it then sing which ever song it landed on.  Or he would move it to one he wanted to play.

It was a small intimate theater with beautiful Rococo embellishments.  He would wander down off the stage and walk through the audience singing while we all ooohed and aahed.

I danced, I sang, I slept on my feet with my eyes open.

Loved it.  It's not what you know.

It's Sunday.

Jackson had stayed the night in Brooklyn so we thought we'd go over, get him, and spend the day there.  Coney Island has just been upgraded and sounded like a fun thing to do.

We caught up with some friends and headed to the boardwalk which I'm sure is beautiful on a nice day but it was 55 degrees and the clothes I brought with me were not expecting wintery weather.

 We had two teenage boys with us and the rides looked like too much fun not to put them on so we headed into the fairground to the steeplechase roller coaster which has been named a New York land mark. Jane hopped on with them and she made it look like so much fun, I fumbled around with my iphone trying to take photos but just ended up with just sky or scaffolding and my feet..

I don't do rollercoasters, I find the Carousel enough for me or the dodgem cars.

 The boys did a few more rides then we thought we'd head to Nathan's for cheese fries.  The health food of the nation.  We passed a thing called the slingshot and the adults thought this was one not to be missed, so we convinced the Jackson and Tyler to get on.  It is a cage like ball that two sit in, which is suspended by bungy ropes on either side.  They make sure you are well strapped in and it is all well tied down then count backwards till you are sufficiently shitting, then let it go.  It flings 260 feet straight up into the air, like a reverse bungy jump, we knew the boys would be freaking out, but we were having too much fun watching and cheering.

They landed looking suitably green and we headed for the fries.  By this time I would have eaten anything warm, it had gotten colder and even buying a Coney Island hoody didn't help.

Nathan's has been around for ever and they were doing a roaring trade, they turn over around twenty people per minute.   I decided cheese fries were not for me and had New England clam chowder and a soft shell crab sandwich.  Mmmm Mmmmmm.

We went back to the fairground and played with BB machine guns and laser rifles till we were all freezing and headed back to Michelle and Camelo's.

More food and stories, Carmelo was in a punk bank back in the day and has great connections in the music industry, so he had plenty of colourful stories.  He also worked for greenpeace, a punk greenie.    Then we had more food till I was so stuffed I couldn't even eat chocolate.

Day one down.  I love New Yorkers.  But please, stop feeding me.

What time is it?

It's night time.  I have been sleeping for an hour, waking for three, lying there for an hour then getting up to eat chocolate and blog.

Jane's apartment has a view of the Statue out of the dining windows, you have to stand in a certain spot, but in Manhattan that is still a view of the Statue.  She lives in a gorgeous old sandstone building with beautiful carved window arches and a vaulted ceiling in the lobby.

If I held a quarter out of the bedroom window and dropped it it would land on ground zero.  About 50 metres away is the new Freedom Tower.  It is half finished and will rise another 50 something stories when it is. It is lit up like Christmas and with the light that bleeds into the apartment I can't tell if the sun is about to come up or not.

They are working on the site seven days a week and start at 6.30 with a truck the size of my house with a jackhammer on the end of it.

They have left the footprints of the two towers which will be fountains eventually.  At present they are large square holes about 30 metres deep.

There is a store across from the WTC site called Century 21.  It is where all designer clothes that don't sell in the department stores go to be snapped up at next to nothing,  It is heaven and it is hell.  There are hundreds of people there at any given time and it is huge and you get into a strange consume headspace.  There are no windows and it becomes like a casino, where time disappears and you must have that one more thing.

As we walk there we pass the memorial wall to the WTC, I find it strange that people come to take photos of it, even after ten years.   It is a bronze plaque about 10 metres long.  I don't know what is on it, it is always blocked by dozens of people taking photos of it.

Jane and Jackson have a cat, Zero.  It is psychotic.  If you get within a metre of it it hisses and spits and attacks.  I bought a pair of lace top stockings which were sex on a stick, walked out to the hall and psycho cat attacked.  They were binned and now I have thick tights on 'cause  legs that look like you have been raking them with a fork are not sexy.

I thought I'd try to win the cat over by feeding it, didn't work.  I thought if I could just get it really fat maybe it would be too lazy to attack.  I'll keep working on that.  If nothing else works we are on the twentieth floor, do cats always land on their feet?

It's Saturday.

After sleeping like a psychotic cocaine addict, I finished packing, did a last minute obsessive sweep of the house and we managed to leave home and arrive at the airport on time.

Quinn was too excited and wanted to be first on the plane.  I like to be last.  I don't want to spend any more time on there than I have to.

As we were ascending we went through some clouds and he said, "oh look, we're going through clouds, this must be what heaven is like".  That put a smile on my face and changed my attitude.  Thought I might as well see it as flying through heaven as anything else.

Either my legs have gotten longer (I wish) or the legroom has gotten shorter and by the time we got to L.A. my hips were screaming.  I've decided to get them replaced when we get home,  I don't like these ones anyway,  they make my bum look big.

So the flight was OK.  Then we had to clear immigration and customs and get to the next flight.  Dante couldn't even describe the two hours of hell that was.

I kept thinking, "OK, when does the fun start?"

But now we are here and how good does it feel to get naked and lie down.

It's Friday.

Less than twelve hours to go and I really should pack.    Packing must be related to studying because every time I go to start I find that I need to do the washing, clean the bathroom or ring my mother.  I had imagined cruising through this week throwing some things in a bag and gliding onto the plane.  But as all good plans do, that one has crashed and burned.

Which is the next thing on my mind.  My favorite place use to be the departure lounge of the  international airport.  It meant I was about to embark on an adventure, go to see some old friends or get away from a disastrous relationship.  All equaly exciting.

After an horrific flight from Jogjajakarta to Denpasar with Bali belly, through an awful tropical storm, I have never felt the same about having my feet thousands of metres above the earth. 

So I start sweating about 18 hours before, don't sleep and am the bitch from hell by the time the plane is in the air.  I then try to distract myself from the fact that I am in a metal tube hurtling through the clouds by watching movies.  I will even sit through Jennifer Aniston rom-coms.  This will be a six-movie flight, I have already checked out what is on and I'm imagining by the time we land in LA I will have a head stuffed so full of Hollywood crap that I will be numbed into handling the next flight.

And this is with an airline I feel comfortable with, wait till I get on a Cubanair Russian built plane.

I have a bunch of things to help me on the plane. I have found that I like to be comfortable as I get older and there is nothing comfortable about cattle class on an international flight.  I have my blow up pillow, an eyemask, custom made ear plugs, travel essence, moisturister for my eyes, face and lips, healthy snacks and water to drink and spray on me.  I manage to stop short of taking my pillow, but only just.

Quinn has been watching Indiana Jones movies all week and we have decided to hum the opening tune as we take off.  I like to let those around me know that I am weird and not someone you want to strike up a thirteen hour conversation with, just in case they are weird and not someone I want to strike up a thirteen hour conversation with, especially when I'm feeling like the bitch from hell.

It's Thursday.

I decided three shifts in 36 hours right before I leave might be a bit silly, so I have taken today off.  Bad move.  Now that I am not distracted by work I come face to face with my anality.  Breathe.

OK, pack. Passport, credit card, phone, ticket.  Done. Many people have said, pack then take half back out.  There goes the phone.

But really, I look in my wardrobe and think mmmm maybe that and that and that, then throw them all in check the weight, and if I can still lift it I can fit in a few more things.  I have found that life is just a series of moving things from one place to another.  I probably came to that conclusion on an acid trip.

Every time we travel Karl says that I married him because he is good at lifting heavy things (my suitcases), that is nonsense.  I dragged my heavy suitcases around the planet long before I met him.  But not wanting to disappoint, and after four years of bootcamp he loves it 'cause it gives him a chance to show off. 

I have managed to waste a morning and now am feeling a bit precious so I've booked to have a massage and my hair done before I head off to the last two shifts of distraction. 

Why does time go so slowly when you are waiting for something and so damn fast when it arrives?

It's Tuesday.

It is amazing how many things you can find to do when you sit down to study.  I woke early and thought I'd get some of my assignment done before Quinn woke.  But here I am, Facebooked and I've set up a blog. I am obviously studying the wrong thing.  

It is Tuesday, we leave on Saturday and I am working six shifts in five days.  As you do.    I obviously think my travels will be interesting, or I am just looking for anything to keep me away from studying, so to blogging.  Which is a silly word.

 I wonder if it is too early to pack, then I think pack what? I am going to the consumer capital of the world so I'll just take a suitcase big enough to fit myself in and consume when I get there.  It is not something I do very often (be a good consumer) but I do like it when I try.

Usually by this time I am a stress mess, worrying or just working myself into a lather about some shit that probably doesn't matter.  This time I must be getting less anal, as I am quite relaxed and don't care if I walk out the door with nothing but the credit cards and a good lipstick.

We start the trip early on Saturday morning, breakfast in Mullumbimby, dinner in New York.

It will be our wedding aniversary, a whole 36 hours of it, which is kind of cute.   I'm sure the twelth is chocolate, lots of chocolate.