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| Our mornings often began with Cuban coffee for Rich, and pastries (next door) for me. |
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| The Ambos Mundos |
We got to ride up the ancient birdcage-like elevator to the rooftop and checked out the view of Habana Vieja. From there, we took the stairs down a floor to check out Hemingway's former digs.
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| Denied. The room was not open for viewing until 10am. |
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| Our lunch at the Paris Cafe was...a little pricier, but we wanted to try a new place (and it was near the Ambos Mundos). You'll never guess what came with our food (psst! It was beans and rice). However, it was in the shape of a pyramid. Everyone knows food tastes better when your food is piled into a pyramid and they squiggle decorative liquid stuff on your plate. |
It had been quite warm that day, so we decided to siesta a few hours before later heading back out to Plaza Vieja. However, our apartment owner had come by earlier to tell us that he'd heard Obama would be paying a visit to the cathedral near our place later that day around 6pm. At 4pm, Rich wandered outside and reported that lines had already formed around the perimeter of the square. So we headed out in cheap, plastic parkas (since it started raining) to queue in line. We were so close to the cathedral that we found out we were able to skirt a security line to get in. :-)
For the next two and a half hours, we stood shoulder to shoulder with a few hundred of our closest Cuban and foreign friends, in thunder and pouring rain. People's cameras were getting soaked and becoming non functional. I was getting sopping wet even under my parka (from a very sexy combination of rainwater and sweat). We met some super cool American born, half Cuban brothers who were in the 'motherland' for the first time, and thankfully passed the time with them laughing at the ludicrousness of our situation. Namely, that we were standing in the rain in Cuba to see our American President, smashed between a crowd of overly anxious people and a row of Cuban 'security' and American Secret Service agents.
The Cuban team consisted of men of nearly every size and age dressed in casual street clothes (jeans, t-shirts), wearing a clip on badge. Most looked a bit like a deer in headlights, and did not seem like crowd control was their um...forte. For all I know, they had been hired earlier that morning. But they were all polite and maintained order, so in the end...I guess that's all that matters.
At roughly 6:30 or so, we finally saw the press start to snap photos. The crowd went absolutely wild. We quickly spotted Malia and Sasha, followed by their mother, grandmother and the President (our group scored a wave from him). I have a terrible, shaky video of the moment (all you can see are dark covered figures partially obscured by their umbrellas).
When we left the area, we could see throngs of hopeful people behind us who had climbed up on windows in hopes of spotting the first American President to visit their country in nearly 90 years. Though I was under the impression that most people were excited to have him there, Fidel wrote a scathing letter criticizing the visit a few days after we left (we were at the airport when Air Force One took off). Apparently he's still bearing a grudge (understandable). It saddens and amazes me that some people would rather hold onto a grudge, even at the expense of others. Though he is correct in that the government can offer jobs, healthcare, a roof, basic food supplies and education to the people, it is still very clearly limping along. I can only hope that by allowing greater private enterprise for the Cuban people (vs. American billionaires), that it will help bring prosperity to the country once again.
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