Notes on Cuba

These are the notes I made last month on our trip to Cuba, September 2014. I was very impressed, and will be posting more about this trip. At Pearson, 04:35, trying to get breakfast at a Tim Horton’s. Breakfast menu doesn’t start until 05:00 so no bagel belt. Ordered a bagel and black coffee. Staff asked how I would like my black coffee! Impossible to find good help! Saturday, arrived, got to our room, got our bearings, kind of. Sunday, explored the resort and the beach, got to know the place a little better. Monday, took the double decker bus in to Varadero, explored the tourist area a bit. Very hot. Stopped at a small tavern in the flea market for a beer. Very good, cold beer. Tuesday, took the tour to Cuba. Long day. On the bus at 07:45, back at the hotel at 20:00! Excellent tour. Wednesday we decided to take it easy, hanging out at the pool and the beach. Drank a little more than normal, stayed up late, causing us to wake late on Thursday. Thursday, got up late, had a sandwich at the bistro because we missed the breakfast buffet. Hung out at the pool for a while, then lunch, and now Anne is at the spa. Note: haven’t been online since we left Pesrson, and haven’t felt the need to be. Very nice to be here with Anne, no distractions, experiencing things together and getting away from all the crap we let into our lives back home. That has to change.

People:

Yadiel, our butler

Joel, the guide after getting picked up at the airport

Osmay, waiter in seafood rest.

Raul Javier, Porter.

Yuni, waitress in lobby bar who treated everyone so sweetly.

Vincent, doorman in buffet.

Jo-ell (?) our guide on the Habana Colonial Day Tour

Places: Varadero, kind of a beach town. Geared towards tourists, not real Cuba Habana. Get the feeling that the tour shows what they want you to see, but glimpses a block or two back of what they show seem like things are a little more run down. The law says they are not allowed to change building facades, and maybe that extends to what they allow tourists to see. Rest stops during the tour, washrooms a little sketchy. At the first one there was a woman sitting outside each of the men’s and ladies’ washrooms, after I used the facility, which had no urinals, just commodes with no seats, no running water and no towels I started to walk away and got called back to pay my peso! Anne got me a pair of headphones for my birthday, which is still almost a week away. Bose, top of the line noise cancelling buds. Absolutely fantastic! Right now sitting in the lobby bar, Anne at the spa. Got my headphones in and music on, because there are Canadians behind me talking, from the oil fields, it sounds like. Makes me embarrassed to be a Canadian because every second world is “fuck”. The hotel, a little tired, a little worn, but under renovation everywhere. Looking at the plans this place will be even more fantastic when they finish. All the staff are great here. In fact Cubans in general seem very thoughtful, intelligent people. Our guide was incredibly contemplative and genuinely a nice person. There are other people embarrassed at these hicks and their swearing. One couple has actually moved to another table. The guy on the bus which brought us to the hotel said there are no sharks or snakes in Cuba. He might have said “poisonous” snakes. Anyway, yesterday we went for a walk and I found a dead snake. So what does that say about sharks? Anyway, the ocean makes me nervous this time around. I wasn’t bad in Mexico last May but this time around is different for some reason. Piña colladas are good, but very heavy. Ernest Hemingway hung out at a bar in Habana called La Floridita. Pretty cool place. Still has an old iron frame elevator in the lobby. Apparently he had a rule…daiquiris had to have double rum and double ice, and he would drink no more than twelve in one day. Russians are insane. There’s a young group here, four or five guys and a couple of girls. The girls are bossy and not averse to doing shots. The guys are nuts, drinking and chain smoking. The first morning one of them had a broken leg, using an umbrella as a crutch. Saw him in the pool later, with Saran Wrap around his cast. Apparently he had jumped in the pool and hit bottom. By the way, Saran Wrap doesn’t for a waterproof seal. He was enjoying himself though, and doesn’t seem any worse for wear. Cubans all seem to have some performing talent, such as singing or playin an instrument. And the ones I’ve seen are amazing dancers. There was a band here the first night just jamming Cuban jazz, switching instruments, riffing on familiar songs in a new way. Really inspirational. I have to replace the high e string on my guitar, which I broke two Christmases ago. Mojitos are good, but over-hyped, I think. I had one, and I don’t need to have another necessarily. We went to the fort in Habana, and on the top terrace there’s a rum and cigar store. Very strange to walk into a store and seeing one of the employees smoking a cigarette. Civilization! Wonder how the quitting smoking will go when we get home. Impossible to do here; everyone smokes and you can do it practically anywhere. And smokes are cheap, a couple of bucks a pack in town, but slightly more at the hotel.

The “Dr. Who Lesbian Kiss” Outrage

The world is outraged because apparently in one of the recent episodes of Dr. Who there is a scene showing a female ally of the Doctor, who happens to be a lizard, kissing her wife, who happens to be a human.

Why is the world outraged at two women kissing, when they should be outraged at the implied bestiality inherent in portraying a mixed species relationship?

Of course, this type of licentious behaviour is to be expected of the “Doctor”.

Who can trust a so-called “Time Lord” who has two hearts, continually changes his appearance in order to avoid detection, and swans around time and space cohabiting a blue box with a rotating harem of female “companions”?

How is it society hasn’t realized the poisonous nature of a television show that coincidentally premiered around the same time as the cultural breakdown of the sixties, resulting in free sex, free speech, lack of respect for authority and the general disintegration of all the repressive values we should hold dear?

It’s obvious, the state of the world today is the sole responsibility of Dr. Who!

http://www.theguardian.com/media/2014/aug/28/doctor-who-lesbian-lizard-kiss-peter-capaldi

My wife the cannibal?

This has been preying on my mind.

Last Sunday I was cleaning the oven. Mrs. N had sprayed the cleaner in and now, 45 minutes later, I was cleaning it out, bent over, head and shoulders in the oven.

I heard a soft noise and I turned around. Mrs. N was coming up behind me with two baking potatoes from the pantry. She seriously looked like she was going to push me and the potatoes in to the oven.

When I caught her she looked very…shifty.

Is it possible that this woman it have been married to for so long has a hidden secret that stops her from being the perfect person I always thought she is?

I will have to monitor this situation.

N21 out

Police Get Tough

Due to an unfortunate typographical error in a recent memo from the Chief of Police a large percentage of Toronto officers were assigned to a task force to tackle an Organized Mime Syndicate.

Several suspects were brought in for questioning but the task force was unable to break their strict code of silence.

The memo was subsequently rewritten and the task force disbanded.

Some stupid thoughts

Went to see my doctor the other day. He told me I had the body of a twenty-five year old. I told him no one could prove that until it went to trial, and anyway, the cops didn’t have a warrant to search my freezer.

I would love to be more charitable and spend time helping the homeless and street people, but they keep wanting a sip from my hip flask, and that’s just gross…why don’t they buy their own hip flask instead of wasting all their beggings on rubbing alcohol?

Tonight, during a heart to heart discussion, my wife thanked me for not being an arrogant person. I said, “Hey, you married the best, what can I say?”

Sorry, guys, just had to get those quips off my chest.

All the best to you, and thank you for following my meagre thoughts.

N21 out

Turn The Page

Just finished Christmas dinner with the families, and for me, I thought it went well. It’s good to see my brothers, sister and Mum, get into a lot of good appetizers that Mrs. N has come up with, get into a good dinner, and kick back and spend some time talking. We don’t do that enough.

And then, when everyone goes home, that’s my time. Mrs. N, she has to crash; she puts so much into the prep that she’s got nothing left for the cleanup, so when everyone is gone I send her to bed and plug in my iPod, and take my time cleaning up. My thing is to make it so that when she wakes up on Boxing Day it’s like no one was here.

It’s not totally selfless. I just got through listening to Springsteen doing “backstreets” and there’s been a ton of other good music…”Tusk” just coming on now…that I get to listen to while I’m doing the cleanup.

Plus I get some time to think about how great it was to see my brothers, mom and sister, which doesn’t happen often enough. “Knocking on heaven’s door” by g&r now.

Gonna have to crash pretty soon, though, because entertaining is not easy, but it sure is worth it, to have the people you care about around you.

BTW, there is nothing as good as doing the dishes while rocking out to Metallica’s Turn The Page with no one else in the room. And now “whiskey in the jar”

To all who are celebrating, have a great Christmas…I know I am.

Santa Claus Isn’t the Only One Who Makes Lists

You better watch out
You better not cry
Better not pout
I’m telling you why
(Insert tyrant’s name here) is coming to town
He’s making a list
And checking it twice;
Gonna find out Who’s naughty and nice

(original lyrics by John Frederick Cootes and Haven Gillespie)

So in many ways, Santa Claus uses the same tactics as many past and present tyrants to reward “friends” and punish “enemies”. Friends such as the CIA, KGB (or FSB), Kim Jong Un, The Peoples’ Republic of China, Idi Amin, Papa Doc Duvalier (with his “Attendance List”), Joe McCarthy (with his “black list”), and last but not least, let’s not forget Herr Hitler, with his “Juden Sehen Dich An”.

And you want this guy in a red suit and disguising beard, to have your kids’ names on file, coming down your chimney once a year?

Old Scottish Men

Thursday night, last, sub-zero temps, taking my dog for a walk. It’s garbage night (actually the night before garbage day pick up).

So out we go, Maggie and I, me in my parka, she in her fur coat. When what do we see, across the street? My geriatric Scottish neighbour Jim, adding one last bag to his wheelie bin. Clad in a shimmering gauzy kimono-design dressing gown, white socks and sandals. With the subarctic wind blowing all around him.

The glow of his pale, hairless legs in the illumination of the street lights was a thing of wonder.

And then my stupid mind thought “if that is what he goes out dressed in public, what is he wearing at home, just watching TV?”

After the paramedics revived me I continued on my walk with Maggie, but then came home and had a couple of stiff Scottish whiskeys in swift succession.

I have not had a full night’s sleep since then.

Damn those kilt-wearers!

Still in a seventies mood

Continuing in my trend of thinking of the seventies and not being able to sleep more than three hours a night (which might contribute to some of my more than usual bizarre behaviour) I started thinking about Nazareth and Joni Mitchell, and they might be a Scottish hard rock band but she so kicks their ass in her original rendition of “this flight tonight” although it’s theirs I identify with.

On other hand, if you can find a video of Nazareth live back in the day doing “love hurts”…well sometimes love really does hurt.

And it doesn’t matter if it’s a seventies lyric or a modern day bitter sweet relationship, on some level we can probably all relate.

Nagigator21 over (btw, out means out, over means waiting for response. Don’t be shy to tell me to stop posting, or just give me your opinion. In my day job I’m shut down dozens of times a day and expected to come back swinging, with better ideas. I’d love to hear from any of you who read this, positive or negative.)