Welcome back to Canada after Cuba! And welcome to 2006. New Year’s Resolution? Actually use this site which I have had for almost 2 years and posted on once and told no one about.

One week of fun in the sun in Cuba was fantastic! Spent much time walking up and down the beach, playing volleyball, swimming, sailing, sleeping, reading. Perhaps the most interesting experience was going into Havana for the day on a tour. We spent the time going around the old city of Havana and seeing more modern sites like Revolution Square. Some interesting observations in Havana:
– most of the buildings are wearing down and are not well kept-up. It almost looks like they have not been worked on since Castro took power.
– everything there is “best ____ in the world,” “biggest ____ in the world,” “most _____ in the world.” It is like they have an inferiority complex and have to prove to everyone that they are cool. The cemetery (top 10 in size in the world) was pretty interesting. So completely unlike all of our cemeteries.
– the irony of a decrepit, non-functioning car sitting in front of a billboard celebrating the 47th anniversary of the Revolution.
– the further irony of at least a dozen turkey vultures flying around the government building.
And Varadero, where we stayed, despite the ugliness of some of the resorts (the “Luxor,” as named by Jen and I, being a prime example) was pretty neat. Gorgeous beach. I mean, fabulous. Maybe I am biased because I found some pretty sweet shells on the beach and enjoyed walking on it and haven’t been to a real beach in goodness knows how long, but I thought it was pretty good. And I thoroughly enjoyed the market in both Havana and Varadero!