hola, sun

i was going to blog each individual day about our trip, but i'm too tired and lazy so i'll do one big post instead. you may need your bookmarks for this one.

we stayed at sirenis la salina in varadero. it just opened this past july, so it was new and clean and quite efficiently run, considering it was so big. kris and i went with our friend chris. we were initially hoping our other friends would join us, but no one else could get the time off work, so it was just the three of us. i called it a miko sandwich - two chris/kris' on the ends, and miko in the middle. i meant to get a picture of the three of us with me in the middle, but forgot.

when we got there on december 13, there were no christmas decorations...but as the week went on, more and more started to appear. all of their christmas trees were crooked, though, which was cute and now something i will come to expect when i see a cuban christmas tree.



we had planned to do some day trips, one to havana and one on a catamaran where you can swim with the dolphins (well, more like jump in the water, take a picture, and get out), but we were just too tired. we wanted to relax, and kept thinking maybe the next day we would be up for it, but that never happened. oh well, perhaps next time. we did rent mopeds and visited downtown varadero a couple times. we bartered our way through the flea markets, did a bit of sight-seeing and went to a couple restaurants just to compare to our resort food.







oh yes, the food. the buffet food was terrible. corn had this weird starchy, dry and hard texture to it; we thought it was just old, but when we went to the a la carte restaurants which had significantly fresher and better food, the corn was the same, so maybe that's just the way it is. any cubans that come to canada probably think our corn is strange because it's so juicy and filled with a weird flavour. i probably would have lost weight on this trip if i didn't drink so many pina coladas...tee hee! we were warned though that the food in cuba isn't great, so i was kind of expecting it. in fact, if it was good, i may have been a little disappointed. yeah, probably not.



as mentioned, the a la carte restaurants were pretty good - you were supposed to only get two a la carte dinners, but we begged and gratuity-ed our way to a third reservation. yay! the only problem was that the reservation tickets only had the day number on it, but not the actual day of the week. we had no idea what day was what, kris and i don't wear watches and chris had one but never wore it, so we ended up going to our last two reservations a day late (they were on back-to-back nights). oops? they squeezed us in though, so it was all good. i hadn't read one review or heard from one person a bad thing about the japanese a la carte restaurant. so we went. my expectations weren't high since we weren't in japan, but i was very disappointed. the sashimi had clearly been frozen then thawed. the teppenyaki chef poured excessive imitation soy sauce over EVERYTHING and there was a little je-ne-sais-quoi that didn't agree with my tummy (i think it was the fish - i shouldn't have eaten it, but i did anyway...) and i'm just getting over it now. thank goodness for imodium otherwise our last day on the beach would have been a nightmare!

the beach was amazing. there was one day that the waves were huge, so it washed up a lot of seaweed and shells on the beach, but otherwise the sand was soft and clean. the reviews that i read complained that there weren't enough lounge chairs and hut thingies for shade...the reviews said that people actually woke up at 7am to put their towel on a chair, and then would go back to sleep. while we were there, they brought in more chairs and they were building umbrellas, so it wasn't that bad. it was kind of like finding parking at a shopping mall the week before christmas...not impossible to find, but you have to hunt a bit.





i befriended some cats, of course. the dogs looked a little sketchier, so i left them alone for fear of contracting cuban rabies.





we met some locals on our journeys. one guy asked us to donate things we didn't want anymore. he had holes in his shoes and pants, and we felt very bad for him. we told him we would return later, and he told us where he would be waiting. he kept saying "lookie, lookie," to show us where he would be. this seemed to be a popular phrase amongst the cubans, we ran across a few people who told us to lookie lookie. we went back (on the moped so we could make a fast exit if needed) with a bag filled with stuff for him. he was so grateful...if we ever go again, we will definitely bring more things for the locals. i read that some people are very proud and won't accept tourist's hand-me-downs, so i didn't bring any unwanted items, but now i wish i did. i guess you can't believe everything that you read on the internet.

we named some of the people that we recognized throughout the week...we had a peppermint patty (a spitting image! i didn't take a picture but wanted to), a crazy eddy (he had big hand gestures, drank a lot, loved being in the centre of attention and unfortunately neglected his family a lot), john candy, kevin federline and two marco who was a casanova (our bus driver's name was juan marco, so we chose the next in line...get it...juan...one...meh) we made some friends, though. john candy and his wife and three kids was one set, and another was this group of quebecois asians who drank a lot the first night they were there (how we met them), but they kind of disappeared for the rest of the time. i definitely felt young since i was asked which school i go to a couple times and some looks of disbelief and awe when i said i was married...usually followed up by the question, "how old ARE you?!?!". haha.

our flight home was delayed because the plane was late coming in from montreal. we landed in toronto probably around 2:30am, and we were home by 3:30am. i didn't sleep until 5am for various reasons, so working the next day was definitely not the easiest thing i've done. we're happy to be home - i forgot how comfortable my bed is. we decorated before we left, so it was nice walking in immediately to a festive house. we spent the day today getting ready for christmas - we finished our shopping and everything is wrapped. we are good to go!

some more pictures: