Day 110: Cuba

This morning was the longest morning ever. We had all gotten only 2 hours of sleep and none of us ate breakfast so we were exhausted and hungry. 

We all forced ourselves to get up because we had signed up to go on a tour about Hemingway in Cuba. 

The first place we went was a seaside village that inspired him to write The Old man and the Sea. It was beautiful there.

While we were just walking around and taking pictures we started talking about how hungry we were and how all we wanted was food and to take a nap. As Molly said,"I am going to take a death at noon." 

We then went to his house. We couldn't go in it but we could explore the grounds and look in the doors and windows. The house was all set up and decorated, it was very airy and spacious so we could see almost everything. He really liked to decorate with taxidermy. There were deer and buck heads everywhere. The house had a fantastic view and you could walk up a long staircase to see the room over his garage that he would spend a lot of time writing in. 

There was another garage that held the boat that he would use to sail to the Keys. There were a lot dogs running around. Molly made friends with one of them and spent most of our time there petting it and talking to it in a baby voice. 

There was also a small gift shop and refreshment stand where we bought water and ice cream. That was such a good life choice, we were so hungry. 

When we left his house we went to a bar called the Floridita. Hemingway went there often and it is the place that the frozen daiquiri was invented. They were serving them. I was by the bar taking pictures when the bar tender asked me if I wanted one. I asked him how much they were and when he said 6 I told him that I didn’t have any money. He told me to take it anyway, so I ended up with a free drink that I hadn't planned on having. Marie and I split it, it was small and not very strong but it did taste good. We took pictures with it all over the bar including with the statue of Hemingway. Yay for spontaneous drinking at 11am! 

After that we walked down the street that the bar was on to get to a hotel that Hemingway frequented. The street was beautiful. It was filled with restaurants and shops. There were people everywhere. It made us all really wish we could buy things. 

At the hotel we signed out of the program so that we could head back to the ship to eat something. We were only five minutes from the port so it didn’t take very long. 

It was the most delicious burger that I have ever eaten. 

I wrote postcards while we ate food. I sent them to four different people and we were told that it will take about a month to get there. So, I will be home long before you all receive them. 

After lunch it was nap time. Serious nap time. It was one of those naps when you wake up in the exact same position you started in. I even slept through all of Rita's announcements about turning in your passports. I wake up until 5:30. Then I watched Dirty Dancing and started my blogs. I had a meeting that I needed to go to at 9 and right around 8:30 I was starting to fall asleep, not good. 

But then simultaneously Jessi called the room and Chris came to visit so it woke me up. 

After our meeting Molly and I went and got food from deck 7 and then I went to bed. It had felt like the longest day ever. The morning stretched on forever and then because I had slept the evening had felt like a new day. The next day was going to be another early morning even though it was the study day. 

Cuba was amazing, I would definitely go back there. I had never been around so many people who just wanted to know about me and were genuinely interested. It was a great experience.