2011 - A New Decade

Happy New Year everyone! We've just returned from our annual "ring in the new year" trip, this time in Norway. It was 10 years ago that this little tradition unofficially started. Dayne and I were just dating and Forest was getting ready to move to Annecy, France to study. Along the way her and some friends were heading to Italy and we all decided to meet up in Paris for New Years Eve. This would be Dayne's and my first trip together!

We started the evening with dinner at Au Pied de Cochon with Forest, Jeff and Tim (who's birthday it was also). It was very cold in Paris and we were planning on being outside at midnight so we made our dinner last probably longer than the restaurant would have liked. We then bundled up and headed out, bottles of champagne stuffed in our backpacks. Every bridge on the Seine was lit up with the new Euro symbol and the flags of each participating country were raised and waving. We made our way to Place de la Concorde where a huge crowd of people were gathered to watch the fireworks at midnight. Having drunk all of our champagne we bought beers from vendors with little tables set up for the occasion, toasted and kissed at midnight and then paraded down the Champs- Élysées with the rest of Paris.

We would later stop at a cafe, drink the rest of the night away and pay our tab with some of the first Euro's to be dispensed from an ATM in Europe!

A few years pasted with us having parties at home or heading out for dinner with friends for the occasion. But we missed that experience- how do others celebrate the new year? How do the cities look all decorated for the holidays? How many places can we drink Champagne in? And so in 2005, with 8 others we headed off to St. Petersburg, Russia and rang in the new year with vodka and live music on Nevsky Prospekt.

2006 took 4 of us to the Big Apple, possibly the world's best known New Years celebration. We chose not to stand in Times Square but went to one of those big ticketed party's, made our own fun and then headed to Pegu Club right after midnight.

In 2007 we were just 3 and we toured all over South Africa finally landing in Cape Town to see the new year come in with fireworks at the waterfront.

2008 would also mark my big 40th and we were off to Japan! Myself, Dayne, Forest and new year eve tripper first timer Matthieu would spend the evening at the Yasaka shrine in Kyoto with thousands of others. We drank beer and Saki while watching as people practiced the traditional first blessing of the year with prayers to Buddha before lighting a dried twig from one of the many lanterns in order to make the years first soup using flame from the temple.  

And in 2009 we traveled illegally to Cuba, welcoming the new year with aged Havana Club rum and canon shots in Havana's harbor.  Besides the normal 3, team Cuba included Matthieu for the 2nd time, Violaine and a different Tim.

And of course that brings us up to date with myself, Dayne, Forest, Matthieu, Violaine and new comer Caitlin watching some crazy ass fireworks and drinking Aquavit in Oslo Norway which I'll write about in a separate post.

I'm excited to see where the next 10 years will take us, what we'll see and experience and who will come along to share it with. It's been a hell of a decade, here's to the next!

Cuba Wrap Up, Adios!

It's time to wrap this Cuba trip up. Have I told you everything? Of course not, but I've got other trips to write about and there's still so much to tell!

There were the dinners in Havana's El Barrio Chino. A strange Chinatown with no Chinese people and an equally strange blend of Cuban and Chinese food on the menus. Highly recommended by Luis one of the restaurants was actually quite delicious. Our only gripe was that when I asked if it was family style or we should each order our own plate we were told to order our own. There was enough food leftover to feed a small army! The other Chinese restaurant not only ended up delivering some of the worst food ever but had us waiting practically all night for it. Our normally quiet and well behaved French friend Matt stormed into the kitchen demanding they bring out what was ready immediately!

 Matt giving the kitchen the "what for!"

 
And there was the very interesting Museo de la Revolution, housed in the old Presidential Palace and decorated by Tiffany's of NYC. Inside we found life size Che & Fidel figures, a history of Cuba, their struggles against the world (told with an incredible communist slant, natch) and the funny Wall of Cretans!

And also the Capitolio Building, a gorgeous domed structure resembling the US Capitol that use to house the Cuban Congress. It's full of beautiful offices, libraries, huge bronze doors, and even a 35 foot statue of a woman. In the center of the main floor is a 24 carat diamond from which all distances between Havana and other cities in Cuba are measured.

There was the day spent in Vedado with it's huge abandoned mansions, amazing Art Deco, Hotel National, Plaza de la Revolucion and the cemetery Cristobal Colon, including it's impressive list of residents such as La Milagrosa

And one of the most fun nights spent up at the Fortaleza de San Carlos de la Cabana where Dayne shook drinks on a cannon before we all sat and watched the festivities of the nightly 9pm cannon shooting, complete with guards in costume!

Besides staying in a Casa Particular we also stayed at the Hotel Sevilla, considered to be a moderately upscale hotel. In addition to the stories about other thugs, writers and celebrities Al Capone once rented out the entire 6th floor here. We enjoyed their large rooms, running hot water, outdoor courtyard, music and mojitos.

And there was New Years Eve, which was a quiet one this year since we had to get up early the next day. We started with champagne, shared with Luis and Luisa at their home, then had a nice seafood dinner by the waterfront where we watched fireworks at midnight. There were parties in the streets as we headed home, people dancing and having a great time. Unfortunately for Tim and Forest, there is also a tradition of dropping water balloons off balconies, which they experienced first hand.

So there you have it, our Cuba trip 2009-2010 in a nut shell. Lots of pictures of all these things and more are in two sets here and here!

Around Town in Havana

In every city there is bound to be some sort of tour guide activity, giving visitors a glimpse of the town in a condensed amount of time. New York has their "hop on, hop off" buses, London has the double decker bus tours, even Seattle has it's Ride the Duck tours. In Havana you get a horse and buggy. They are everywhere, they all look the same. The guides call out to you offering their services. How were we going to pick just one? How would we decide who was going to get our $30CUC (split between 6 of us).

 "there they are, how do we choose?"

Woman tour manager: "Hello friends, take a tour around Havana?"
Forest: "Ummm, maybe. We're not sure."
Woman tour manager: "Look, I know you don't want to but come on."

How can you resist this type of salesmanship? We couldn't and so the 6 of us piled into a buggy driven by Wilfred for a little tour and some history about Havana.

 

We actually did this on our groups first day together, it was a really good way to get the layout of the city, see some of the monuments and learn a bit of history. We rode past the Museo de la Revolution with it's outdoor exhibit of the Granma, surrounded by vehicles used and planes shot down during the revolution. 

From here we rode along the waterfront to the beautiful Plaza de la Catedral. Cubans dressed in traditional costume pose for (paid) pictures, music fills the square. The large Catedral de San Cristobal de la Havana sits on one side, once the resting place for the remains of Christopher Columbus!

 

Next stop was the Plaza de Armas. This is Havana's oldest square, originally laid out in the 1520's. There is a huge used book market set up daily in the center; magazines, books, post cards and programs bring back memories of the years before the embargo and of course the Revolution.

The Castillo de la Real Fuerza is also in the square. Built in 1558 it's the oldest existing fort in the America's complete with draw bridge, a moat and cannons!

On to the small Plaza de San Francisco de Asis with its beautiful fountain where we witnessed a girl having photos taken of her on her quinceañera, this is a traditional "debut" of sorts as the girl is now considered mature and will be permitted to marry in the next year (at 16).

 

With all this bumping around in the carriage we were very happy about our next stop, the Havana Club Rum Museum. Complete with salsa band and mojitos there are little exhibits set up explaining the process of making rum and the history of it.

It wasn't the best mojito we had but it gave us a chance to buy Wilfred a drink and hear more about his life. When I naively asked him where he might want to travel to he looked at me like a child and replied "this is a communist country, we are not allowed to travel anywhere". Being the beginning of our time in Cuba I hadn't learned about all these rules and felt ignorant of my knowledge of their life but Wilfred was very kind and continued to answer our questions both over the rum and back in the carriage.

We continued on our tour, past the main train station where we saw the incredibly old trains still running on the tracks built in the early 1900's. In fact Cuba was the sixth country in the world to have a railway, not much looks like it has changed including the Hershey Train which still runs today!

As a side note, transportation is looked upon as a bit of a joke in Cuba. Forest and I watched the movie "The Waiting List" (Lista de Espera) which is a very cute comedy outlining transit issues. Check it out if you're interested.

Past Parque de la Fraternidad with it's busts of Latin and North American leaders (including Lincoln) , the cigar factory (which unfortunately was closed for the holidays) and China Town (who knew?) we finished up our tour at the Parque Central Hotel where of course we went in for a cocktail. Of course!

Many thanks to fellow traveler Tim as most of the photos in this post are his. We had some technical difficulties and lost most of our photos from the first 4 days due to a bad thumb drive. Thanks Tim!

To Do: drinking in Havana

Many of you know that I love to-do lists, I love to write them out on my pretty Kate Spade Short List paper, I love to cross off each thing I've done and I love to complete my list- pull out a new sheet- and make a new list. I'm excited to cross of "write bar blog post" when I've finished this!

I consider a category of sites in a guidebook like a ready made list. If you flip through my collection of guidebooks you'll see sites/places/restaurants/bars that are circled; that means I want to go there. And you'll see sites/places/restaurants/bars that are highlighted in pretty green, pink or yellow; that means I've been there! I get very excited about adding more and more highlights in my guidebook as I re-visit places.  For the places we have only visited once there only the few highlights that time allowed for.

As Forest, Dayne and I were consulting the "Drinking" section in our Lonely Planet Cuba Guidebook one afternoon we realized we had hit almost all the bars listed in Havana, why not set our goals high and hit them all since we had 10 days in the city? And so we did! Here is our review of LP's list; a bar crawl around Havana; and/or just us drinkers doing some bragging.

La Lluvia de Oro- I loved this bar on Obispo. It's been open since 1939. Loud salsa music spills into the street drawing us in. Who doesn't love a bar where the band gets the crowd involved, Forest was so involved she actually played with them!

And they had this adorable kid who was really quite good- a sure tip earner! This house band sang, danced and looked like they were having a great time. We only left when they stopped serving!

We've already covered La Bodeguita del Medio and El Floridita,  so next up is Cafe Paris. As you can tell from the picture we literally stumbled upon this bar.

Tim and I enjoying our Pina Coladas, and getting caught in the rain...

Loud but not as charming as others, we stayed for one round and made our way out. Maybe they were having a bad night but the music wasn't as good as other places and the drinks weren't particularly good either.

We made a quick stop at Bar La Marina one late afternoon. It's an open air bar with a vine covered ceiling. They have an old hand cranked sugarcane juicer and offer a nice selection of fruit drinks as well as cocktails.

Bar Dos Hermanos- One of the oldest bars in Havana, it was opened by two brothers in 1894. It's large, has great old star photographs lining the walls and has been newly remodeled but even with all of that we couldn't love it. The service was really bad and we ended up leaving pretty disappointed. Dayne did take the opportunity to write a little note to our President while waiting on his cocktail however.

La Dichosa is unmarked but found on Obispo by listening for the music and watching for the crowd spilling from it's doorway. We somehow snagged a table one night and ordered big beers and pizzas. The band was good, it's quite a tourist draw and it was a very fun and lively stop along the way.

Cafe Taberna is in the gorgeous Plaza Vieja. Opened in 1772, it's a very pretty bar with a few outside tables. Every morning at 9am you can take free salsa lessons!

On the opposite corner of the square is the Taberna de la Muralla. They have a huge outside patio and a fairly descent house band. They are known for their "Giraffes" of home brewed beer, which was quite good. That's way more than we could say about the food, most was inedible. The cheese and crackers I had stashed in my purse came in handy that day! But I'd go back and just enjoy the music, beer and outdoor patio.

We were really looking forward to checking out El Baturro who's description in LP is "Part of a long tradition of drinking houses situated next to train stations, El Baturro is a rough-and-ready Spanish bistro with a long wooden bar and an all-male - aggressively so - clientele. Don't come here if you're looking for girly cocktails." Woohoo! Bring on the rough and ready men! Does this look rough and ready to you?

Dud.

Monserrate Bar, one of the first bars we went to on the advice of Luis (who just sent me a nice little email last week saying "hi")and one of my favorites. This is a great bar with a fabulous house band led by crooner William Valoy who, upon doing a bit of research on, turns out to have done some back up vocals for Company Segundo who you may be familiar with as he was a composer for the Buena Vista Social Club.

There was always a crowd here and many locals were perched outside listening to the music. Good cheap pizzas and excellent mojitos. An excellent bar.

There were other bars we tried, some listed in the book and some found randomly- hotel bars and rooftops bars and even a fake bar where they said the Buena Vista Social Club use to play.  But without hesitation I can tell you that our favorite bar wasn't in the guidebook at all. Bar Castillo de Farnes attracts all kinds- locals, tourists and jineteros. It's open late and they have plenty of rum- about $1.50CUC for a glass of 7 year old Havana Club. But best of all they have Felix who makes the best damn mojitos in all of Havana. Oh and I also found out that Ché and Castro toasted the success of the Revolution right here at the Castillo. We stopped in every single night!

It's good to have goals and even better to accomplish them!

Hemingway was here...

Some people really get around, you know? Italy, Paris, Africa, Caribbean Islands, Key West, Cuba... I'm not listing some of our travels (although we have been to all of those places!) but rather some of the locations that Ernest Hemingway traveled to and lived in.

Cuba was his home for 21 years and his last residence before moving to Idaho and committing suicide in 1961. It was here that he won the Nobel Prize in Literature and where he wrote his last novel A Movable Feast.

It's hard to walk very far in Havana without stumbling upon a bar or hotel where "Papa" hung out and we made our way to most all of them.  Our first cocktail upon arrival in the city was at the now very touristy La Floridita where they have an honorary bar stool and bronze cast of him. La Floridita is famous for their daiquiris and also the invention of the Hemingway Daiquiri.  There are many stories about the creation of this cocktail, one is that his fourth wife Mary Welsh urged head bartender Contstanino Ribailagua to create a drink without sugar as Ernest was diabetic. Knowing that his customer really liked to drink (he reportedly drank 16 one evening!) he came up with the Papa Doble or Hemingway Daiquiri, which replaces the sugar with maraschino liquor and includes a double shot of rum and grapefruit juice.

But Hemingway did not survive on daiquiris alone, there were mojitos. Lots and lots of mojitos served to him at La Bodeguita del Medio. And although we hadn't been to Havana before this was not our first time drinking at La Bodeguita.

Ernest's first year in Cuba was spent living at the Hotel Ambos Mundos in room 511. This is the view he looked out at as he wrote The Green Hills of Africa and Death in the Afternoon on the typewriter in the glass case. There is a very nice man who will give you a bit of history of the room and Hemingway's time spent in Cuba for a $2CUC donation.

In 1940 Hemingway moved to the southern outskirts of Havana into a beautiful house, Finca Vigia, in San Francisco de Paula. When he left for Idaho he left the house and all it's possessions to the Cuban people. The government sealed the house, brought his boat the Pilar to the site and reopened it as a museum.

We all thought the Hemingway house was a highlight of our trip, there is an amazing collection of nick nacks, wild animal mounts, trophys, records and approximately 9,000 books! Books everywhere!

You actually aren't allowed inside the house because there are so many things that it would be too easy for tourists to steal items. Instead the doors and windows are open and you can walk all the way around the house and see into each room, well almost each room. The kitchen and Ernest's bedroom are not viewable. Want to see some "secret" photos of them? Well lucky you!

 

  

One of the museum workers offered to take these pictures for me, just like so many Cubans it was an easy way for her to get a few CUCs as a "tip" from me. 

Next to the house is a tower and at the top is an amazing office with an even more amazing view of Havana. The museum has also filled one of the tower rooms with a collection of fishing trophies and memorabilia.

 

The large swimming pool, now empty, was once the site of many famous gatherings of writers and actors such as Spencer Tracy, Errol Flynn, Jean-Paul Sartre and Ava Gardner (who repeatedly swam naked in it). Nearby the pool are the grave markers of  4 of Ernest's dogs, interesting to me as I had only known about his cats before (rumored to be around 57 of them).

And then of course there is the Pilar, the 38 foot boat that Hemingway not only competitively fished on but also patrolled the Cuban coast for U-Boats and allegedly ran the Crook Factory, a pickup spy network during WWII. 

 

"Every man's life ends the same way. It is only the details of how he lived and how he died that distinguish one man from another."

Ernest Hemingway got around and so do we! Mix up a Papa Doble and view more pictures of Hemingway's Havana and the Finca Vigia here

Based on the recipe from La Floridita for 1 serving

2 jiggers Havana Club rum
(1 jigger = 1 1/2 ounces)
Juice of 2 limes
Juice of 1/2 grapefruit
6 drops of maraschino (cherry brandy)

Fill a blender one-quarter full of ice, preferably shaved or cracked. Add the rum, lime juice, grapefruit juice and maraschino.
Blend on high until the mixture turns cloudy and light-colored.

cheers!

Ticket to the Forbidden Island

I've had a lot of questions about how we arranged our trip to Cuba so here's the scoop.

The United States first placed an embargo on Cuba in 1960. Since then there has been an economic, financial and/or commercial embargo in place in full or partially. Each President and each year brings changes either tightening or loosening the restrictions, recently the Obama administration has agreed to allow Cuban Americans with relatives in Cuba to travel to the country to visit family.

Since we don't have any relatives in Cuba we had to figure out another way in. And although Cuba wants tourists and has no problems with Americans entering the country they aren't able to accept US credit cards which throws a big wrench into trying to make hotel and air reservations.

This also meant that we had to take as much cash as we would will need for our entire vacation, no debit cards or ATMs are available to Americans. Additionally US dollars are being taken out of circulation there so the charge to exchange them is very expensive. We chose to bring both Canadian and Mexican currencies with us to exchange which seemed to work out well but did involve some pre-planning.

Most people assume that flying through Canada is the best way to go since Canadians can legally travel there but what many people don't know is that Canada shares flight manifests with the US. The best ways of entry are Mexico or the Caribbean Islands. We chose a non stop flight from Seattle to Cancun on Alaska Airlines. Earning mileage for travel to the Forbidden Island? Priceless! There are only 2 flights a day to Havana and since there is a 3 hour layover required to fly the same day, we chose an inexpensive hotel and spent the night. We flew on Christmas day, met Forest at the hotel and that evening was spent in warm Cancun, drinking margaritas decorated with gum drops and eating tacos and ceviche.

We took the advice from a friend who had gone a couple of years ago and had a really good experience using a US based travel agent who specializes in helping Americans into the country. Don't ask me how all this works, I'm sure we don't want to know! I really can't say enough about our agent Madison and all she did to help us out. She arranged our flights from Cancun to Havana and gave us options of sending a check or using a credit card that she would run through another agent in the Caribbean. She told us which counter to go to and the name of the person to ask for to pick up our tickets in the Cancun airport. I won't lie, this was the first time I felt uneasy and unsure, what if we got ripped off? Doesn't this all sound so clandestine?

 

But everything was just as she had said and our tickets and tourist visas were all there. The only glitch we encountered while checking in for our flight was that Forest had to pay a departure tax since she had been there for more than 24 hours which we still aren't really clear about. 

On to lodging... our friend's sister had recently stayed in Havana at a private casa particular and had contacted her family. Although they didn't have any availability they recommended and contacted Luis and Luisa for us. We paid cash upon arrival for our room. Our travel mates Forest and Tim booked their casa online, also paying in cash upon arrival. We arranged for a driver to meet us at the airport and drive us into town using that site too.

Booking a hotel for our last couple of days proved to be a bit more complicated as no one could take a US credit card. We booked our stay at the Hotel Sevilla thru this site but had to use our French friend's credit card. Madison could have also booked our room but since it was the high season her connections just didn't have anything available in our price range. 

Our return flight was uneventful up until the point when the Mexican customs agent stamped our passports. I had asked if we could go unstamped but he said no. Having two entry stamps to Mexico may have alerted US customs agents so we all spent the evening in Cancun devising stories, looking into alternative locations that we possibly could have gone too and in general worrying about our trip home the next day.

Our worries were completely unnecessary though, the passport control in Seattle barely glanced at our passport as he welcomed us home and customs agents waved us and our suitcases packed with rum through lickety split.

Hope this information helps! I'm happy to answer any other questions you might have.