Cuba: Day 1 Minus 1
Our house is in a state of disarray as we pack suitcases and attempt to get all of those things organized that it is necessary to organize before one goes away for any length of time.
Our plane leaves at about 6:30 a.m. tomorrow, and the airline says we have to be at the airport three hours ahead of time – which seems ridiculous, but there you have it. So we will be leaving the house at 3 a.m., which means that we will be trying to get to sleep REALLY early tonight. And that in turn means that all the packing and sorting and checking of lists needs to be done before early evening. We’ll see how that goes, since it is almost early evening already and I haven’t packed anything yet.
Tomorrow we fly from Toronto to Varadero, Cuba, and then take a bus from the airport at Varadero to our hotel in Havana, where we are meeting with our group for dinner. Even though Havana is in the same time zone as we are here in Toronto, it is going to be a long day. But I am so excited that I probably won’t sleep at all tonight.
In preparation for this trip, in addition to the copious materials sent to us by our tour guides, I have read the introduction to the Lonely Planet travel guide to Cuba, and I am looking forward to reading the entries for our particular destinations as we approach them. Our trip will include stops in Bay of Pigs/Playa Girón, Cienfuegos, Santa Clara, Trinidad, Vinales and Havana, and will wind up with a couple of days at an all-inclusive in Varadero. I will post something about each place we see, but not necessarily as we go, as I understand that internet is iffy in Cuba, and that wireless internet is almost non-existent.
In addition to the Lonely Planet book, I’m taking the Wallpaper City Guide to Havana, a gift from Arnie’s nephew Paul Resnick (thanks, Paul!). And as far as communicating while we are there, I’ve downloaded a Spanish-English dictionary onto my iPad and iPhone and I am hoping that this – combined with the past couple of months of refreshing my Spanish on Duolingo – will see us through.
In regard to Duolingo, I love the app/site and think I will take up German next. My biggest problem with Spanish (aside from being only about half way through the course now that it’s time to leave) is remembering vocabulary, and trying to change verbs to the past tense. But I can stumble along. I am looking forward to hearing Cuban Spanish, which is I’m sure much different from the Spanish I heard in Mexico and the southern U.S. – and to what I heard on Duolingo.
On my last day on Duolingo, I wrote this on Facebook: “I am now ready to go to Cuba. According to Duolingo, I can say ‘This car has no battery’ perfectly in Spanish.”
The next day I posted this (utterly unrelated) thought:
I have been looking over my travel insurance in preparation for my trip to Cuba. I am wondering why it is that if something really awful happens to you when you are out of the country and they have to ship the pieces of you back to Canada, they refer to the process as “repatriation.” The word makes me feel as though the insured, demised though she may be, is expected to rouse herself on arrival back in her home country at least to the point where she is able to salute.
So on that upbeat note, here we go.
Hasta luego.
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