De regreso

Yesterday, I got back from a week long trip to Varadero. It was my first time to an all inclusive resort and still don't know what to make of it. It was pretty close to what I expected. A lot of dingdongs drinking themselves into a drunken stupor. How is it that just because booze is free you have to go crazy. Oh and not to mention the ginormous mugs almost everyone was carrying with them. Some of these mugs looked more like little barrels, while others were the size of thermos. Don't they know what they look like?! But wait, la crème de la crème had something even worse. They were cutting the top of liter-and-a-half water bottles and were asking for the bartenders to fill THAT up. These, my friends, are our wonderful international representatives. About 75% of the clientele were canadians so we only have our "fine" selves to blame. I can't even begin to count how many times I felt embarrassed by my own kind. The only solution to that would be to remove the booze from the included items in the all-included format. The one entertaining thing about it was all the nicknames we ended up giving to everyone. Between the guy baptized Val d'or, the other la Tourtière, les 3 folles, the ketchup family, Stéphanie (the only one who kept her real name), our amis québécois (because the were not acting up), the party loving moron (I forget his real nickname) who was friends with le maigre, le couple weird (made up of a 70ish-year-old guy and a 30ish-year-old woman) and all the cuban characters we met, we kept ourselves entertained.

On the other hand, the weather was great! Not to warm, not to cold. The sea was out of this world! I was worried that there wouldn't be any waves but oh, how I was mistaken. The waves were different every day. Only for one day was the ocean quiet. But we took advantage of the beach and sea everyday until about 2:30 pm, when it was just starting to get a little chilly. There was also 2 cats roaming the grounds which totally made my day when we saw them. The grounds were nice, the hotel also and the staff friendly. If I have one recommendation to make is NOT to travel with Sunwing. For me it was the first and last time I would go with them. Our departure flight was delayed twice and the second time cost us an 11 hour wait at the airport with the O-so-impressive voucher of 20$ for one meal... One our way back, they were almost an our late picking us up at the hotel. We saw all the other travel companies arriving fairly on time, so why not Sunwing? That would be because they don't care about their customers.

But all in all, I enjoyed my week. I enjoyed being away from winter for a while and I enjoyed the new experience! Yay life!

: )

Sometimes the small things can put the biggest smile on your face!
I just had a nice phone conversation that left me with an incredibly happy feeling. My dad, a man of very few words, called me feeling a little blue. After talking about the issue at hand, instead of hanging up the phone, we just diverted to various miscellaneous subjects. Well, almost 45 minutes later, as we are putting an end to the call, we both feel good and happy. I love these moments!

Twice in one year?

Yesterday I booked my second trip of the year to Cuba. The odd thing is that I didn't really enjoy my first experience.
At the end of my week in La Habana this past August, I was really annoyed by the CONSTANT begging from a lot of Cubans. More so after having a conversation with Pablo (the most positive aspect of that trip) who told me that they didn't really lack anything. They couldn't afford luxuries but they were not in need of necessities. So that very last guy who told us he couldn't afford milk for his kid because it cost 8 CUC, which is the equivalent of 192 CUP... idiot. I gave him my change just to get rid of him. grrr. I've been to places were people had a lot less than these guys but they had a lot more pride and were waaay more honest.

This december, I'm going to try the all-inclusive-resort-thing for the first time. I'm a little nervous about being surrounded by all these drunken tourists but as long as the weather is on our side, I'll be happy. Now, I just have to tell my family I wont be here for the first week of the Christmas holiday.

Take two

INTERNET SUCKS IN CUBA!!!!!
I came to this hotel were we pay 6$ an hour for Internet. It wouldn't be so bad if the Internet wasn't a dialup connection. Out of my hour, it takes me a full minute just to login to my hotmail account. And what's worse is that 2 days ago I came, spent my full hour on the computer and wrote this huge entry for this blog. Well... Just as I clicked publish post, everything went to hell. A little bit like what is happenning now. I'm getting a @#$*@# message saying I cannot connect to blogger. Screw this! I'll write about this place when I get back home.
To think that last year I was in a village of Nicaragua and wireless Internet was almost everywhere! Raul and Fidel need to get with the program man. I am excessively annoyed!
Right at this very second, I'm not sure how I feel about this place.

La Habana

Here I am in the cuban capital. My travel buddy and I arrived here in the wee hours of the morning this morning. It was crazy hot but the kind of hot where you don't keep it inside, you just sweat it out. Beautiful!!!
It's weird and I can't put my finger on the reason why yet, but I don't feel like I'm in America Latina. First there's the architecture that seems to date from way before the Batista era, but there's something else and I have yet to figure it out.
Today was quite the day. Our goal was to find a suitable language school for another project. We left our host, Pablo, around 9 this morning and started walking. After a while and a few stops in different places to ask questions, we encountered a pretty nice school. But we decided we needed to go seek the foreign language department of the university on the other side of town. So we hopped on a wawa (bus). Wow! Lots of people and kaos on those buses! I think that's where I sweated the most. I'm not sure how many wawa we took because we kept on changing out itinerary. But it was quite a fun adventure.
Now that we have figured out the school stuff and the lodging issue, tomorrow will be a fun day of doing activities that future groups could do.
I am definetely not to pity!!!!

Heat wave!

After a week of 40°C temperature and hearing most people complain about it, all I can think about is the -30°C temps we'll have to endure in a few months.
All I can do is enjoy this heat wave!

First trip

Later today, my 19-year-old niece will be leaving for her first major trip. Tonight, she will be boarding her very first plane, direction Morocco and then another plane, direction Mali, where she will be staying for 2 months!
No need to say how proud I am.
This is how you grow as a person and this is how you really get to know yourself, your strengths and your weaknesses.
Never mind traveling through Europe or Latin America where it is so easy communicating with people. In the villages where she will be staying, they won't speak French nor English!
Did I mentioned how proud I am? :)

Chica, I wish you the experience of a lifetime. I hope you fall in love with the culture and come back to us transformed in an incredibly positive way, and inspired like you have never been. I envy you insanely and can't wait to hear all your stories. xox