I have a cuban simcard now
ik heb een cubaanse sim nu
finalmente tengo una tarjeta de sim ahora
j´ai une nouvelle carte du sim maintenant
mi ab wan njoen simkaart

my number is 005352446386
mijn nummer is 005352446386
mi numero de telefono es 005352446386
mon numero du telephone est 005352446386
mi nummer na 005352446386

call me
bel me
llamame
telephonez-moi
kar mi

thanks in advance
alvast bedankt
gracias en avance
merci beaucoup
grantangi

From Havana With Love

la destruccion que llevó Ike

http://www.juventudrebelde.cu/cuba/2008-09-09/imagenes-de-los-estragos-de-ike-a-su-paso-por-territorio-cubano/

Ike

People,

Sadly, my province is the victim of many storms, and for the second time in two weeks, will be plowed through by a hurricane. Gustav was the worst storm to hit Cuba in 55 years. Ike is actually stronger, at this moment it's a category 2 but seeing as it has broken its way through land, its restrengthening and hitting again from the south.I have no idea how long there will be no power or internet, but it will before a long time. rest assured I will not die, but just prepare for the worst. Just follow the weather reports, the nhc page and wikipedia.


Mensen,

Jammer genoeg heb ik dus weer te melden dat mijn district in een staat van paraatheid is gesteld. We worden voor de tweede keer in twee weken geraakt door een orkaan. Het zal tegen de middaguren van morgen land raken, en dat zal dus weer in de buurt zijn van mijn school. Het is momenteel een categorie 2 orkaan, maar sinds het weer boven zee is zal het versterken voordat het ons raakt.Ik heb geen idee hoe lang het zal duren voordat ik weer internet heb, maar het zal lang duren nemen we aan. De provincie is al gemold en er komt een nieuwe. Dus ik ben niet dood, ik ben gewoon without power.

Hoop voor het beste.


Gente,

Por segunda vez viene un huracan por aca. No se que pasara pero ya esta mosen alerta aqui. Ike crecera probablemente en una categoria 3-4 antes detocar suelo aqui. Bueno, espero por lo mejor, pero preparo por lo peor. viene en las horas de la tarde de manana. Significa que no tendremos corriente para un periodo de tiempo. nosignifica que toi muerto, significa que estare en un apagon

Bueno, hasta pronto y que tengan un buen dia.

Farid

Gustav

Finally gddmt!!

I guess that it was about time that I started writing again. I will have to ask you readers to excuse my French, as my English sentence building skills have been severely diminished. And I am not just saying that because I am listening to “Excuse My French” by Kylie Minogue (an unreleased track).

So I will start where I kind of left off. My trip. The infamous one that is. Where I traveled about 20.000km in ten days.

I hope we all know the basics about how it all came to be, it started with me conjuring up the story about my grandfathers’ supposed death. This never happened, but I needed an excuse for the school to give me permission to leave. This took about a month, by that time the story had already changed into me leaving for Suriname to sign my will, and if this didn’t happen, I would stand to lose 158.000 euros. Which couldn’t be any farther from the truth, a truth that included traveling to Holland to see Kylie live in concert.

Anyway, so all things said and done, my boyfriend at the time, Patrick, the one who is maintaining my blog (HA! That means that this text is censored on my end, because I cant say things that he doesn’t know about hahahahah) bought me a ticket from Cuba to Paramaribo. A one way ticket.

I left for Suriname at about 9 in the morning from Jose Marti International in Havana. On the flight to Panama I was seated next to this gay couple. The funny thing is that they were talking about me in Spanish. I grinned as they were expressing their desires for a ménage-a-trois. I looked out the window, saw the panama canal and the centennial bridge. Oh yeah, and a cruise ship. Arriving in Panama after two hours of flirting, I was exhausted as I didn’t sleep the night before, I was too excited. Either way, I tried to see if I had wi-fi connectivity. Turned out that I had to pay for it, 10 usd for 6 hours. I only had to wait for like one and a half, but I bought it anyway. And there it was. MSN. That is where I accidentally revealed to my stepmom that I was coming to Suriname on a surprise visit. It was a surprise as I didn’t tell my family about it. Funny isn’t it? But they already knew. That pissed me off.
Anyway, back on the smallest aircraft ever, an embraer e-190, that made me feel a bit claustrophobic. Saw the Andes mountains and stuff, and was afraid that some rebel Columbians were going to shoot an RPG at the plane or something.
Then I arrived in Trinidad, after a 2.5 hour flight. During which I had my first serving of beef in like 5 months. It was delish. Anyway, upon arriving in Trinidad I was a bit confuzzled as I hadn’t slept in like forever. So I went to stand at the diplomatics queue. The woman then told me, sir this isn’t a diplomatic passport. I asked her if it wasn’t. Then I slowly backed away into my corner of shame. And after that it got even funnier, I checked out my bags to check in again (I was switching from carrier), but the problem was that I had to wait 5 hours to check in again. So yeah, I like forgot to check in my bags, so I just walked over to departures with all my luggage up until the customs chick laughed at me and told me to back away and step behind the yellow line. Then she pointed me to the check in desk, where I realized that there were 4 more hours to go. Luckily the wifi was free. So as I treated myself to an upsized combo of popcorn chicken from KFC (their idea of an up-size is a double serving!) I realized that my battery was almost dead. I was freaking out.
So I just sat there like an idiot, waiting on the right time to dump my bags. So I did, and this is where the trouble started. I bought a commemorative bottle of Havana Club in Havana. LOL that was a funny story actually, there was a flight leaving for Moscow as well, so the store was filled with Russians. Now I heard stories of their drinking, but this my friends, took the crown. The line at the counter was endless. Even the kids were holding bottles. I even saw one sniffing the contents as if it was his asthma medicine. Technically I bought it tax free, so I could just carry it around with me. This is not what the customs said in Trinidad. They started sniffing my bottle like possessed bats. And told me that I couldn’t take it with me. I told them that they couldn’t do that as it was Tax Free. After running back and forth, I got to keep my opened bottle. Those bitches. Our flight to Suriname was delayed for an hour. While waiting at departures I did manage to find an outlet to continue my rantic MSN abuse. I encountered two Surinamese people along the way, and this is where I made a fool out of myself….again. One was just on business, and the other was in transit from Puerto Rico. He had lived there for 20 years. I started talking. And talking. And talking,………and talking. I just couldn’t stop. I was ranting on and on about all kinds of shit. It was terrible, I knew they were getting bored, but it didn’t stop. I just kept on vomiting words and words. The guy from Puerto Rico handed me a newspaper in a desperate attempt to shut me up. And it worked….for about 3 minutes, when I was at it again! There was no stopping me. It looked like they were about to commit suicide, but they were saved by the boarding call.
The flight back home was a bit scary as it was my firs flight on the local carrier. They served bread with tunaspread and chease. WTF??? Yeah I know right. Either way,. It went by quicker than I imagined. I was listening to music on my laptop and writing an article.
Upon arrival I didn’t even realize that I was back home. Something I had dreamt about for like 7 months at the time. I was back home, and immediately I smelled what I found to be trash. Ah yes, the scent of Suriname. I was just too excited to even realize what was happening. The checkout went quite fast as the flight wasn’t too filled.
This is when it happened. The shocker. My mom was supposed to be institutionalized so I did not expect her to be there, but she was. Pumped full of lithium, making a scene. Treating me like I was 2 years old. But I was a bit annoyed. So I kind of acted like an ass. That sucked a bit. Mandela, Kirston, Stacey, Jason and Santouscha were there as well, Now I only know Mandela, Kirston, Stacey and Jason, Santouscha was a bit new for me. They were so happy to see me. My grandmother and her boytoy were there as well, a whole crew. But as I had said before, I would be going home with my friends, so yeah. I went over to Kirstons place. The drive back was weird. I tried my best to print it into my mind, so as not to forget. Turns out that I didn’t have the slightest idea of what was about to happen on my trip. I realize now that I have almost typed two whole pages on my first day. I guess this will have to be a ten part series.
At kirstons place, the first thing I did was take a shit. I really had to go, and keep in mind, that at this point I had been awake for about 24 hours. I arrived at midnight, so I had been traveling for about 15 hours. This didn’t stop me though. I poured myself a glass of the Havana Club, took a quick shower, and changed so I could go party. I mean come on, it was fridaynight. I couldn’t waste any golden opportunities. So we went out at about two. You will never guess what happened next. Technically speaking, that Friday was Friday the 13th. The last Friday the 13th, Mandela, Stephany and Me went out drunk driving without drivers licenses. She slammed me from the back and half-totalled her moms brand new SUV. Do you see where I am going with this?
Mandela picked me up in her moms brand new car. We were planning on going to ZsaZsaZsu, the biggest thing to happen to Suriname since Starzz. Both nightclubs. And since we were all officially legal (Kirston turned 18 on may 2nd), we were all about to have a gay ole time. About to that is.
Not even 2 minutes after we left the house, Mandela, the proud owner of a new drivers license started to show off her driving skills by speeding up and revving the engine. Now I was screamingly asking her to slow down. Then Kirston (on the backseat) started slapping Mandela on her shoulder and screamed ‘show him the fast turn, show him the fast turn’, Mandela’s eyes started glistening, a banana shaped smile formed on her face, the car started speeding up, and she took the turn into the next best road. Now this all went very fast, she took the turn, the meter was on 70 kmph (that’s like 40 mph), and the car turned. But instead of the short, fast turn she was hoping for, the car took a slightly larger turn, and was headed straight for a tree, shocked, she turned the wheel, banged the tree from the side, causing the car to kind of leap, straight onto a stop sign, which was uprooted and floored. The car came to a full stop about 10 meters further. And refused to drive. Let me just state that this was within 2 hours of my infamous return to the motherland. She almost started to cry because she felt like she had disappointed me. Either way, after a whole drama with the towing company and her mom, she did manage to go out with us. It took some begging from my part. But her mom is cool, I love her.
Either way, we made it to ZsaZsaZsu in Santouschas car. A bit shaken, but not stirred. We did enjoy the night. I did the hot walk, its this Jamaican dance that the Surinamese girls don’t know about. I was drunk alright. Then my cousin (who takes pictures for a living) took our picture and put it on the net, and I am assuming in the newspaper the following Wednesday, as I asked him to. Arent I the regular attention whore.





From left to right: Santouscha, Stacey, Moi, Mandela (looking a bit shaken and stirred) and Kirston.

We ended our whole escapade at about 4-5 in the morning. I stayed over on Kirstons bed. Needles to say, we still managed to enjoy ourselves. I saw it as my imperative to get Mandela drunk, she needed to.

The next part of the story is Saturday, june 14th 2008. I will write that later.

A storm is coming

OMG
The first storm in the neighborhood.
We have been getting freaky weather over here, I took pictures of lightning,
I'll post them shortly.

Live at 36000 feet

This will be the last article I write on Microsoft word before the normality of blogging starts again for a week.
I am currently on flight PY 0736 to Paramaribo. I made it this far, I am almost home. Listening to kylie at 13km up makes it all worth it. I need to pass the time, its so boring to travel alone.
I met two Surinamese people in the waiting room, and man they must have been super annoyed with me because I spoke so much, it was like I was on crack. I was just happy to be able to talk Dutch again, because for the past week I have been talking Spanish like a crazy person.
‘circling and were getting close, can you imagine, just suppose’ lol ‘love me love me love me’ I love kylie.
I saw her concert photos on kylie.com while I was on the real net, and I wanted to cry, I NEEED to see her live in concert. Kdjbfnnksmdfck.dsbf

Lol

The altitude is making me a little crazy

See you on the other side

Excitement squared.

The time to leave is nearing faster and faster. It is 7 at night and I have to be all done and ready to leave at 5:30 in the morning. That’s in about 10 and a half hours. I cant wait, and I most definitely cant sleep.
What am I going to do? I could go out drinking with my Ecuadorian roommate, but he said that he doesn’t drink anymore, I could go smoking with my Ecuadorian roommate, but I don’t smoke. I don’t know what the fuck I am supposed to do.

I could go to Havana, but that wouldn’t make any sense as Id have to take my chaperone with me. I couldn’t have him seeing me canoodling on ye ole malecon. I called Jesus already, he is sad that I am leaving, puche papi, hahahaha

Gosh I am starting to get really excited here. Remind me to call Mandela and Kirston to go and buy a Big Mac Combo and a 3 pc chicken meal from popeyes to bring towards the airport. Oh yeah, and bottles of beer and rum hahahaha geez im already tingling from delight.

I don’t think that this post has any deeper meaning. Stay off drugs and drink !

The Cohai Lunch

I just had my first cohai lunch experience.
Have you ever seen the matrix, now I am not exactly sure which part, but it’s supposed to be the one where neo gets a look at the kind of food they serve in the Nebuchadnezzar.
Now that is exactly what the food looked like. Some kind of white soup with lumps in it, some chicken skin floating around and I am pretty sure those weird dreads were hairs. Aside from the soup we also got some white rice pudding, now there is nothing more nasty than rice pudding, its just so gooey.
Aside from that, the chicken was nice. The rice was overcooked but I did however enjoy the sweet bun, reminded me of home.
After I was done eating, I was once again attacked by some Cuban (this was a girl that worked there) who was wondering if I wanted to sell my glasses. In a perfect world honey, where you had more money, maybe I would have, but my Emporio Armani’s are worth 200 usd. No Cuban I know has ever had the possibility to buy that.
And plus, I love them.

I felt kind of anxious about going home this morning. But that feeling is gone now as I sit here on the bed again, listening to Speakerphone by Kylie, sweating because the air conditioning isn’t working, smelling dirty feet and realizing its me. My slippers have been attacking me, I don’t have my bathing slippers, so my adidas gets wet when I shower. And in these communal baths you NEED to have slippers if you do not want herpes or hepatitis C(uban).

Literary Intermezzos

Wednesday, June 11, 2008, 4:37 PM

After being rudely awaken by some fat chick to do something important, I sit here now on my bed, once again, annoyed at not being able to do anything. As I had promised before to catch up on some literary styling, I feel the need to do it now. Realizing that promise, I think I will write a few short texts, just to see if I can. Now I am not stressing how difficult it can be. Writing is a drag at times. Ok here goes.

Imagine seeing everything in a darker point of view. Not because you have a black heart, but because you refuse to take off your sunglasses. If I recall it correctly, the sun always shines for fabulous people. Wasn’t that what Stephany told me ages ago? Back when I used to look up to her.
You don’t hear me walking down the hallway; my half stinky adidas flip-flops don’t make me catch attention. The only sounds that can be heard are the rustling of the leaves in the trees, the strong gusts and the thunder rumbling from afar. It is extra dark now because the sun is hiding behind the clouds. Its cold.
The stairs look art deco, no unnecessary flingflangs or thingamajigs decorating it, just plain granite slabs. Simplistic, and functional. I am walking through the walkway of a big cuban university. Everything is simplistically built and serves an important function. The money to diversify and bedeck doesn’t exist here.
I am supposed to enter this small room. I am supposed to fulfill an important task in this room. I am supposed to take an action that might change my future forever. But I do not think of these things as I step into the well lit room. It is colder than outside.

The strange and imposing woman asks me for my ticket. I look at her. Her dress is ripped in some places, but not so visible as she has sowed the rips closed. She is a bit overweight as I can hear her pants screaming. They also do not match her top. Her shoes are of the old spice-girl-platform-sandal kind. Old and worn out like the wrinkles on her face. But she looks proud. She looks like she is fulfilling a special function. Complying with the task that has been put onto her existence.
Do I care about all these things?
I used to. I used to keep in mind all these things in the past. But that was before I changed. Before I started looking at the bigger picture. Before I grew up. I changed before I even noticed it happened.
So I gave her my ticket with a smile, I was trying to let her know that I respected her. Respected her endurance, because in her place, I wouldn’t be able to keep up that pride, that perseverance. I know I cant. I am not as strong as her.
I told her to keep in mind that the data was in another language, but she had already figured it out. Sometimes people startle you with their intelligence, maybe its wrong to assume that everybody is as stupid as your roommate who doesn’t know how to boil water. Naïve people always get my blood pressure up.

Everything was fine now. I didn’t need to stand in the well lit room anymore. I could put my sunglasses back on now. I could leave. I didn’t feel relief. I didn’t feel anything, I guess I was still sleeping.

But something woke me up. A vision in white. You know when you’res walking someplace and something just catches your attention that you have to twist your neck so far back it hurts?
It was like that. A perfect example of Cuban perfection. This young muchacho of about 18 years of age, a slight stubble in the face, and curly black locks you could run your fingers through for all eternity.
He walked into the bathroom after looking into my eyes. He hit the door by accident, I guess he was as distracted as I was as I almost stumbled down the stairs.
Its that feeling that you have, that interpersonal connection that can make you lose track of time, its what makes you forget that its raining and thundering outside.

I catch myself when I hear this loud boom. I think a tree died. It was very close. Have you ever noticed that the closer lightning strikes, the clearer the sound is. No more prolonged rumbling, just a straight boom.

The hallways are empty again. Only the rustling of the leaves that are being blown over the cold concrete can be heard again. I decide to just look back, just for a few seconds, you never know right? That moment might have been worth it.

He wasn’t there. Just empty hallways.
My moment was over.


O-kay. That turned out to be a bit longer than I expected. I guess I am writing a different one later on tonight. Im spent for now.

Ciao.

Another article yes

I am writing this just 5 minutes after the last article.
I figured that it was about time to catch up on my literary side, since I really have nothing else to do.
I am currently eating one of those freezing cold ham sandwiches the school gave us this morning, I didn’t feel like going down to eat here when my guide asked me. So now I am eating a ham sandwich with all the tissue still attached to the bread and the ham, mmmm the cellulose will have my bowels kicking with delight later. Ugh, they just stick to the food, its so annoying.
There is this weird smell in the room, don’t know if its nasty foot scent, a mixture of curry fart and body lotion (a weak attempt to try and mask it, can you picture it in your minds, me inflating and deflating the body lotion bottle so that its fresh scent may spread towards the lands)

Ugh many more interesting articles to come.

To hell and back (part II)

As we all may have noticed, I am no longer in ELAM 10, Rafael Ferro Macias. I am currently residing in COHAI, which is a big university complex, about 10-20 times bigger than my faculty if I am not mistaken, in the outskirts of La ciudad de La Habana. I am leaving on Friday, leaving finally after 7 cruel months. Today is Tuesday, lol, yessssshhhh, I will explain that a little bit later.
As I look out of the metal windows, I see it once again, the profile of the biggest buildings of Havana, the José Martí memorial statue, Habana Libre, all of them, almost the same sight as about 7 months ago, when I first arrived.

I am once again, In Transit.

I am taking a very small break, about one week, to sign-my-inheritance-that-was-supposedly-left-by-my-grandfather-who-died-about-a-month-ago. Noone knows this, but that’s a lie. Hahaha, and I feel so weird after putting this on the net, but I don’t care, the cuban government isn’t reading my blog.

This break that I have taken signifies a glitch in their almost perfect medical brainwash system which is very successful by the way. It broke me, yes, I have decided to do medicine after all. I do not know if its their cheap rum, near genetic perfection or just my weak mind. But yes, Cuba, has won. There were times in these past 7 months where I would have killed just to go back home and forget this whole experience ever happened to me. But look at me now, I am actually leaving, but I am not afraid, because I know I am coming back. I don’t know if that is what has been eating me up from the inside the last couple of days. The fact that I am leaving but knowing I am coming back.

My friends back at the faculty have all made a big bet, with amounts reaching up to 200 cuc, that I am not coming back. Fun to see this crisis has become a full fledged event in school. My departure. It was nice though, it started raining uncontrollably just as I was about to leave. Complete with the wind, and the water, my briefcase looked really heavy, and my black shirt was waving in the wind, and I left just as it was break time, so the whole school could see, that their fearless leader was leaving.
That was one of my top 100 attention whore moments, I have to admit.

So yes, why am I here, in a dilapidated room, for students and their guides (still not allowed to travel alone no, that is, towards the airport only). Why am I here in this huge building with even suckier bathrooms, bigger toilet-paper-bins (you know we cant flush our wipes right?, wipe and throw it in the bin in front of you….) and less interesting people?
Why on Tuesday if my flight leaves at 9 in the morning on Friday. Two big words explain it all: Cuban economics.
The thing was that I was about to be sent on Thursday afternoon with the school taxi towards the airport and that I had to wait there until boarding time the next day, which was perfectly fine with me, as I would be able to do all of my tests and presentations (oh yeah, did I forget to mention that I am in the middle of my test week right now?).
But no, it turns out that there was a group of about 12 professors that were leaving towards Matanzas for some kind of seminar. Matanzas is about 100 km to the east of La Habana, so since were coming from the west, they could drop me off. So the fuckers told me last afternoon, pack your shit, you’re leaving tomorrow. So I did, and here I am.

The Journey. Sigh. Notice la letra mayuscula? The capital letter? It was some journey yes. Much shorter than my other journeys towards the capital because this time it did not involve any walking, waiting for cabs, discussing cab fares or any of that shit. We had our own little minibus that was quite fast. So we reached in 3 hours. 3 very long hours. It was a new cuban experience for me. As soon as we left the schools, know what they did, they bought 3 bottles of rum, and started drinking it pure. By the time we reached Havana, they were done long time already. Woops, fragment consider revising alert, that was some Belizean English fi. Hahahha, I hang with them too much, it done fi bring dan mi English.
But yeah. So I joined in on the fun, no I never drank the rum, I bought myself and some of the female professors a beer, because they asked me.

So yeah, I called this article part II, because part I was written 7 months ago and should be on one of my blogs. It should be.

As I sit here, on my leg which-has-no-blood-circulating-through-it, listening to Mea Culpa by Enigma, in the dark of the air conditioned room because I am too lazy to turn on the light, trying not to fart because I had a killer masalla (curry for all you a-cultured barbarians) last night, I realize, that these will be a god-fucking-boring two days.

Hmmm, maybe we can co to the city tomorrow and spend the money that Kristin gave me to buy her an external HD. Hahaha

Look at the bright side, at least the room is air conditioned.

How funny, Lluvia Cae (rain falls) by Enrique Iglesias just started playing. Its still raining outside, as it has been the entire day.

RE: Goeie morgen

ik zal je wat lolligs vertellen
ik had zaterdagmiddag een pakje sap van natanael gevraagd
maar het was niet genoeg om mn flesje te vullen
dus heb ik die andere gewoon genomen
en toen zei ik wat wat wawat ga je doen dan (als het liedje)
en ik ging weg toen ik thuiskwam vroegen ze me of ik zopie heb gesmokkeld, ik zei van
nee, ik heb nog een halve fles, entonces, ik zal het toch niet nodig hebben

toen zei die lummel, je bedoelt je had een halve fles
mn ogen en bek vallen open
ik ren naar mn locker, en warempel, mn zopie was op.
het had me echt geraakt hoor
ik voelde me zo stom hahahahaha
alleen als men aan mn zopie gaat

lol ja, verslaafd, I think so too

ik heb besloten bepaalde emails gewoon te forwarden naar de blog, want dan spaar ik tiktijd en zijn sommige geinige dingen dan ook te zien

hello world.

Boredom

What do you do when you're slit-your-wrists bored? I have no fucking clue. My only form of entertainment nowadays is just sitting around, getting drunk and amusing myself with little things. I have a feeling I should stop drinking. I woke up with all kinds of hickies on my neck and chest that I barely remember receiving. *sighs* I need some high quality entertainment. and if not, just some hot ass sex (but consistent....because ill want more after it happens the first time). ugh I dont know right now. Im just mondo bummed because I didn't get ANY MAIL AT ALL today. No, I mean just now. This has never happened to me before. NEVAAAA.

What I am trying to say is Fuck You
I'm bored
Email me goddammit

.....

OH MY FUCKING GAWD
Im bored again,
no one is emailing me,
at all,
Its been about 4 hours or something
I wanna die.

Drunk at 11 am

When your life is as interesting as mine, you would understand me. I sit here, it is 3.20 pm and I am bored as hell. We are literally not doing anything in class, but we cant leave either. We dont have school tomorrow either, but we cant leave. Isnt it funny? Some are playing RPG´s, some are watching ANTM cycle 8, some are addicted to The Treasures of Montezuma, or are playing Bejeweled 2. I am listening to Kylie´s non stop history 50+1 and as I am listening to Finer Feelings, I start getting depressed and drink the remaining 100 ml of my morning cocktail.

Yes I drink in class, wait until the drunk classroom photo shoot comes.

Ugh I am so bored.
I want sex,
and dancing,
and KFC....
and ice cream...

What's the best that could happen?

That's the new foreign policy that FarIsa Inc. has incorporated into their business policies. It is the new and improved version of the previous one which was called 'whats the worst that could happen?' A recent study has shown that the new policy has improved crew morale significantly. It was found that it dramatically decreased the fear of having a fucked up weekend. Though at times, the new policy would prove insufficient, referring to the 'she-who-shall-not-be-named' incident.

Last weekend started out fine. We were all happy that the Bahamians who were coming with us (Louisa and me) had told us that they were going to arrange a ride from school all the way to Havana. That was great because anything beats having to take three separate rides to go to the capital. Then came the first funny part of the weekend. One hour before the planned departure I received an email asking me, more or less telling me, that there was no ride. It was never arranged. This was especially comical because I remembered reminding the Bahamians to arrange this cab from Tuesday onwards, which was 5 days earlier. But yeah, somewhere I did feel that we were going to walk 2 kilometres in the searing sun anyway. Call it my special Surinamese optimism. And by that I mean negativity, because yeah, we know I am negative Sally Jones.

The second fun-thang of the weekend was the departure. I mean, when you know that you only have about 24 hours (of which at least 8 are spent traveling) you'd think that one would hurry to leave right? Nope. They were late. We left at around one and we started the 1.5 mile hike to Isabel Rubio. During which we stopped for refresco and pizza.

On a side note, there is this one girl who annoys me a lot. I don't know why but she really does annoy me meticulously. It is just everything that she does. Even when buying pizza. The girl is fat, you'd think Godzilla would jump at any chance to eat something right, but noooo, homegirl is picky as hell, she refused to eat her pizza because it had some bitter aftertaste. I had to eat her pizza. I eat almost everything. Is it my metabolism-which-is-still-low-cuz-bigmacs-give-me-lovehandles? Is it something else? I don't know but she really really really annoyed me last weekend. Im sorry ellen, but its true, I don't like her. Ever since that weekend in pinar, when we went out to eat. I mean, how difficult is it to order, they already said no beef no pork, just fried chicken. So take the fucking fried chicken. But noooo, they went through every item on the menu with the waitress who was clearly annoyed as she had already said that there was nothing else. But nooo-ho-hooooo homegirl was still trying. *sigh* I have no idea. I really do not.

Moving on, we took a sardine-truck. That means, we sat like a pack of sardines in a can with our bags shoved in every crevasse, yes every crevasse, im pretty sure my sphincter would have a seriously wicked convo with me if it could only talk. It does sometimes talk to me (when it produces farty orchestras) but I have never deepened myself in fartch (farty dutch). When we reached pinar, my left cheek refused to wake up, I had to entice it with a bag of cookies and a bottle of rum. We stopped at el rapido to freshen up after we got some money out of the bank. As I am very hungry right now I keep on regretting not getting myself some fried chicken while I was there. Movig on, we took an ok cab that took all 6 of us to Havana. We had nice music and we all enjoyed it. Well most of us as two of the girls dozed off into a semi-comatose state. Ellen seemed to be enjoying herself. I have just realized that I only refer to ellen, and not to anyone else. I guess its because they don't know that their stories will be put on the net for everyone to read :P:P Anyway, we reached Havana and we split up.

Three of the Bahamians went to Miramar, to their embassy for a special conference which tuned out to be shit anyway) and another Bahamian girl went with Louisa and me, because her grandparents were visiting Havana. We were supposed to locate them and bring her to her family and shit. We all went to our casa to refresh to continue our Havana adventure. I took a big shit. It felt like it had been ages. And then I felt like shaving my balls. So I did that too. Either way, we continued on to look for the direction of her grandparents' house on my map that I carried with me, and we decided to walk there as we had some time to kill. When we finally reached, her people weren't there,
so we had to conversate with the people from the house, And I could smell some nice ass food, but my dignity kept me from asking for some, we went to Chinatown later with Jesus. My cuban friend. The Bahamian girl we were with stayed with her family. By the time we reached the restaurant we were already pretty drunk. We had chop suey and chow mein. Which was actually pretty good, but yeah, I wasn't that hungry anymore. From what I recall, I was conversating with a cat, a beautiful cat. In Spanish. I was telling it how they threw away my pride and joy, Tina, back home. They just threw away my cat, and I was explaining this to the cat in Chinatown, and then it nodded at me, and I knew Jessebelle understood me. Afterwards, I don't really remember what I did, but I think I went to see Ellen and her friend at La Rampa to get a bite to eat. That's where the whole ordering drama started. There was this huge fucking ass picture of a fried ass shrimp, and it said camaron, and she still had to ask me what a Ca-ma-raw-nies were. Ugh, I wanted to take my nasty ass daikiri (this bar was shitty) and smash it into her fat fucking face.

After we sent them home (stumbling, because ellen couldn't even handle half a daikiri hahaha) me, my friend from Nauru and Jesus went to another fiesta de diez pesos. We were a little late but it didn't matter as they were still doing dragshows by the time we arrived. They were going on and on and on (like a pure white diamond –only kylie fans will understand that--) and they finally stopped at 3, when they started with the cool house music that we were waiting for. We met up with mr.6 who is my friends lovebuddy. The one that did her 6 times that is. As we all assumed he was straight, because he fucked her 6 times (somehow I cant stress that enough, it was all within 2 hours hahaha). We couldn't be more wrong. Mr.6 was kissing fag here, fag there, fag everywhere. It was funny actually. I was standing in line to be next, but he stopped prematurely. Hmpf

Anyhow, after the party we sat at the malecon, my friends and me. Where we were just drinking beers, looking pretty, when mr.6 just appeared. And started the whole thing all over again with my friend, just like that time we got robbed. They started kissing and licking and whatnot. And I just continued my convo with Jesus. Then this weird guy (with pretty eyes) and prison tattoos started talking to me. Telling me how much el me gusto. Hahaha. And that I had a culo, and he had a pinga, entonces, nos ibamos a joder. Hahahah, free translation: I have a hole, he has a dick,
concluding: lets fuck.

I did not.
We just kept on talking as he kept on making weird fucking movements in front of me. So I just gave him a peck on the cheek to get him off my back, would have given him a normal kiss if he didn't tell me that he lost his virginity to a pig, or was it a horse, I don't know, some farm animal. I was so disgusted that I had to ask my friend Jesus, and he told me that it is normal there. I wanted to vomit

The next day me and my friend were off to go and get pierced. That never happened. The guy moved back to Holguin, how nice eh? But yeah, we then decided to go look for the rest, whom we found al frente del teatro Yara. Which was fine I guess, only, one was missing since last night.
The Havana curse was back. They were freaked out. And I didn't give a fuck, and neither did my other friends that weren't from the Bahamas. We literally spent two hours just standing there, eating dutty peanuts and talking and drinking Vigor energy drink (its cuban……lol but it works)
Anyway, I finally decided that waiting there wasn't going to solve anything so we all went to Chinatown to eat and drink our sorrows away. I had this killer fish steak and an even kill-y-er cuba libre. That one just done fucked me up I was stumbling. That strong. As we were buying pastries Jesus got a phonecall from some other Bahamians in la habana saying that the missing girl was already halfway back to school. Which sucked because we waited 2 hours on her. So we were pissed. So pissed that we decided to leave immediately where problem number no se qué arose. The taxis were overcharging, so we refused to pay, so we just sat there like Gandhi on a good day. Really, we just sat there ready to take an indisciplina from the school for the fact that we were going to be very late.

At 5 pm we were still there. And our ultimatum was 9 pm. It takes about 4 hours to go to Havana. Well we finally managed to find the same ass rat-cage bus as the one we came in. By the time we reached pinar, I smelled like a chimney and half of my deserts had already melted. We took another cab back to school and reached just in time, at 8.40. All was well in la-la land and the children were sage again

Tadaaaaa

END

PS I really had to summarize the end because I was kind of in a snag
(blames ellen), but yeah, it still makes sense right
Comment if there are any unclear elements.

And please, save the world and ride a cowboy.

The Biggest Frustration

Your parents, older friends, family, they always tell you to enjoy your youth while it is there. Because they know it was the best time of their life. Normally we always take them for granted because you can never do anything when you're a kid because you've always wanted to be grown up so you could do the stuff you wanted to do.
Now imagine, youre 18 years old, on the fringes of being adult, and not really being a kid anymore. What do you call yourself then? an Adid or a Kidult? Ugh its just very confusing for me.
I got to hear yesterday that I need to go to visit an oncologist because my tumors might have gone bad, I Just realized today I can go home for a week, but my mom who is supposed to help arrange all this just flipped and is unreachable, my dad isn't supposed to know about it, and I think I am weirdly attracted to someone who I am not supposed to be attracted to.

My life is a mess,

and people still ask me why I am drunk at this very moment.

Rihanna Feat. Ne-Yo

You see, just a little over 6 months ago, I would have killed myself if I ever thought the things I am thinking right about now. Just a little over 6 months ago, Suriname was still fresh on my mind, I still believed I could get a week in Holland for Christmas, I still believed I would never succumb to the whole Che Guevarra craze, that I would never enjoy my time here.

I was very wrong. Somewhere along the way I started getting positive, more social, more decisive and better looking (yes, the pimples disappeared). I even stand up for myself now. Can you believe that?

I am without a doubt. A Cuba-Whore.
I Love Cuba. But I Hate that I love it so.
That Rihanna has me crankin out lyrics, but I understand now

I love the fresh air, the internet-access in class, the ease of life, the cheap alcohol, the beautiful people, the nice friends I have made here, all makes it a bit worth while. I have also discoverd that thinking about the better aspects of life here makes you way less depressed and requires one less bottle of rum every d.... week.

Its better than thinking about nazi teachers, sucky school schedules, not being able to go home and all that Jazz

If I had a camera I'd show you that I really am happy.

Forever Young

"...I want to be, forever young..."
Who remembers that song? Well, after a gruesome discovery, I definetely remember the song now. It was so gruesome it made me fear my far future as well, will I ever be one of 'those' people who keep on thinking that they're young and fabulous?
These pictures were discovered by my friend on a school PC, and for some odd reason, I keep on having these thoughts in my head that these pictures were never meant to be discovered by young developing brains.

These are straight from the C-dossiers. The Cuban Dossiers.

File: The C-dossiers
Sub-Cat: Mission Salto

These pictures were apparently taken at Salto de los portales. That is where the first picture of this blog (me with my bottle of rum) was taken as well. Luckily it was not at the same time, otherwise I would have eye cancer. And trauma to the brain. Moving on, this was a supposed trip taken by the teachers of our school. These are actually Spanish teachers, well, the sexy one that was posing on the rock was/is a Spanish teacher. It is absolutely horrible. please, shield your eyes before taking a look at the cuban belleza.

Cant say I didnt warn ya.

KYLIEX2008

OMG it has started. hearing about the reviews on perezhilton and seeing the pictures, I NEED TO GOOOOO. Im hoping Ican catch the June 23rd show in the Ahoy in Rotterdam. I will do everything in my power to go, because these chances dont always come along. So wish me lots of luck.

SNAPs!

Just some pictures I took just now with my friend Renette from Jamaican.
The finger in the first picture is Armelles, from Belize.

Cuban Beauties

It has recently come to my attention that there was a need of pictures of beautiful Cuban ladies on my website. So it is my duty to oblige to these bahamian desires. Yes, I know its you, but it is ok, this will be the first batch of many pictures of what Cuba is really about. It starts with the best ones and then the regular pretty ones. So yeah, I think its a great idea, displaying the human resources that Cuba has to offer :P

Enjoy, these are the hot nurses of our school.

We're in Havana baby

Havana ALMOST always equals heaven

Twas a nice mornin, we didnt even have to walk the three kilometers to Isabel Rubio where we usually take the cabs. We took a mula (horse-donkey cart) halfway, and rode it all the way to Isabel Rubio, which was fun, the shaking kinda reminded me of a vibrator, but then I realized, I do not have a vibrator, so I guess it kinda reminded me of what a vibrator would or could feel like. In Isabel Rubio, there was nobody waiting to steal our cab, so we just took a cab, which was nice, he drove with a moderate velocity, which was good, considering the first etapa (step) of the trip was about 70 kilometers. Our first destination was Pinar del Rio. Once over there I got the scare of a lifetime, my card didnt work, AGAIN. But it turned out that the first bank I went to just didnt have an active connection, I managed to get my money out at the second bank, and we continued on to Havana. In a really fast cab. A cab that had a cable for an mp3 player, so I was listening to nice music, something really funny was that the cabdriver almost had an orgasm when he heard umbrella. Apparently miss Robyn is very very very popular aca en Cuba.

Once in Havana, at 6 pm, we freshened up and took a 3 km walk along the Malecón, paseo del Prado, past parque central, Gran Teatro de la Habana and el capitolio. Then we had nasty chinese chow mein at a new restaurant, so I didnt eat. It was in chinatown where I met up with my friend from before I came to Cuba, Jesús. We didnt have fun as the food was sucky, but everybody was laughing, because Jesús was a bigger bitch than me, and he kept picking on me, which apparently is amusing to these people I call friends.

We took a cab to edificio Focsa, where we were planning on going drinking at the bar on the top floor. Instead we crossed the road and ate (again) rabbit. It was amazing. Yes, RABBIT aka BUNNY aka that-thing-that-attacked-me-on-august-6th-2007-in-rotterdam. It tasted like chicken on steroids. We drank daikiris but I assume that they hadnt made daikiris in a while, so they laced it with rum, the non drinkers looked doped up after they managed to finish it. It got them so tired that they went home. So that left my friend from A-country-that-shall-not-be-named.

Soooo as the fags outnumbered the straightie, we decided to go to 'a-fiesta-de-diez-pesos'. Literally translated, 10 peso party, but in reality it means underground-gay-party-outside-of-havana. The cabs line up at a specific place in the center of Habana, and only the drivers know the location, they change it every now and then so as not to alarm the police, it kinda is illegal, especially because many tourists go. It took us to this park-that-shall-not-be-named, about 20km outside of Havana. As we arrived they were having a drag show, which was cool. my first drag show ever, one of the trannies was wearing radioactive green lenses with matching wig and dress. And she did this performance of hers with a husky dog. It was kinda cool, and the people stuck money in her fake-cleavage. Then after the drag shows, the music started. The House music. The same goddamn music I like. It was sensation 2007 all over again, but with a great remix. I was happy and my friends were happy, as the beer was plentiful. Then came the reggaeton competition. All of a sudden these 6-7 hot guys jumped on stage, took off their shirts and started dancing. It was awesome. One of the final three looked like kylies backstage dancer and that model from D&G perfume spliced into one perfect specimen. This hot guy with a crawford piercing walked up to me, and asked me where I was from, I told him, not from here. And then he grabbed me by the chin, looked into my eyes and said: pretty woman. I was dying of laughter on the inside, but I understood what he said. Then I grabbed his chin and stroked it gently, saying : Tu también mi amor. And he was shocked. But I passed :S

Entonces, at 4 the party ended and we took a cab back, and we ended up at La Rampa I think. We were just walking around, peeing in building crevasses and just having fun. We reached the malecon where we continued giggling and having fun amongst the gay crowd. And then all of a sudden, a complete (hot!) stranger walks up, looks at my friend (the one from school) and starts kissing her passionately. Very passionately. And she wasnt complaining. Thats the last part of the evening that we enjoyed. Then the two guys from the party, I believe one of them was the winner of the reggeaton thingy earlier, but I am not so sure, as I was drunk. Then out came the knives and out went my ipod, money, camera, watch and dignity. I got mugged. Where were my friends, one was getting jiggy widdit, and I believe the other was too. Yes, more than 1000usd worth of stuff, footsie. and I was panicking, because my friend (from another country) left with a stranger, so i ran towards the nearest police officer saying that I got robbed, but at the moment another thought kept me busy, the fate of my friend. They took me to the police station for the report. The report that took 6 hours to make, the report that was only 2 pages long. You can imagine me being stressed, crying excessively and almost pulling my hair out when the officers kept saying that I should prepare for the worst because my friend had probably been raped and thrown into the ocean. I remembered that we made a deal to meet at Coppelia at 10, but I couldnt go, because I was still at the police station. Moving on, I called my friends, who were sleeping, to go and look for her. And they did, but with no results. So they all came to the police station at 12, which is exactly when we went back to La Rampa to look for her.

Turns out she was STILL making out with her cuban friend on the Malecon, which is why I was very relieved. As soon as it hit me that she was fine, I started crying out loud on La rampa, realizing my ipod, camera and watch were footsie. But everything worked out fine in the long run, we had Wakamba chicken on calle o (its chickenlegs, with the bone pulled out, but filled with ham and cheese)...kinda cordon bleu. Anyway, I wanted to get a cd to my other friend, so I walked 3km only to find out that he wasnt there, so I left again, leaving an original cd on the floor of such a building just didnt seem smart at the time.

As we drove home, we were very happy that nothing REALLY bad happened to us. Minus the material things and the mental scarring, everything was ok after all. And today, as I am writing this, I am much mor informed than yesterday, when I was thinking horrible things at the police station. There was a moment where I thought the cuban that was with me the whole time to set it up, but my friend from school (the horny one that was making out with another cuban) told me that he came looking for me and got very worried. I can confirm that, I received a few confused emails today.

Either way, I am a few experiences richer, and a lot of gadgets (AND MY LABELLOSTICK) poorer. But im over it.

Pensamiento del dia

I heard that I can leave after premedico for 6 months to do whatever the fuck I want, and come back, and start with medicine. Considering my stats, I am still very young, and i can live without studies for 6 months. its a big decision, and in those 6 months, I will definitely change my mind about coming back.
Either way, when I come back, there is a 50% chance that I will be sent to
Havana when I come back, which is good.
Either way, im saying that this is all depending on my experiences here in Cuba for the next 4 months.

Vamos a ver

Habana, Habana and more Habana 25-32

This is a mural called Carro de la Revolución. I think, I am not so sure anymore. It is located in the Hotel Tryp Habana Libre, and it has been there for a long time. It is completely made out of porcelain. It was on the wall next to the first nightclub in the building.

The same road (Calle Hospital) but this time it showed some better housing. It really is a beautiful city you know.

Chinatown during the day. What did you think? Cheap Chinese food and not go back? Do we look or sound like idiots. Please, only this time we went to a different restaurant where we had sangria, fish filet, lobster (get this, they asked us politely if they could substitute the shrimp with lobster because they ran out of shrimp…..for the same price) and chow meen.

I have no idea what kind of fish it was, but it definitely had red meat. It was a mix in between tuna and salmon. I don’t know what it was, but I LOVED it. And then the langosta, oh gosh, I still cant believe I never had lobster before. Its all I eat in Habana.

That is the paifang that the Chinese government sponsored. They did the same thing in every country that had a significant Chinatown.

The capitolio during daytime. It looks exactly like the one in America. Isnt it ironic?

Oh this is cool. This camera is like 80 years old and it still works. The guy will take your picture for 2 bucks, and it looks like it was taken 80 years ago. Really nice, the pictures are done immediately, and are in black and white

Finally I have reached the last picture. GOSH, 32 pictures, now don’t complain for a long long long time. This is the Gran Teatro de la Habana. They have cabaret and ballet shows over there. I just think that the building is magnificent. It is located at Parque Central, next to Hotel Inglaterra.

Wow….La Habana. This is only part of what the city has to offer. And in my next few trips, I am planning bodeguita del medio, Cabaña fortress and el Morro. Hopefully I will get them done on time.

Habana, Habana and more Habana 17-24

A closeup of Hotel Nacional, which was in fact, constructed by the Italian Maffia. They even had their shit here. It has 400 something rooms, and it is expensive, that is all I needed to know. I wanted to sacar some dinero there, but they said my card was denied. I felt so poor.

A part of centro Habana, this picture was taken from my veranda at my casa particular. It shows the real picture of Cuban life. Kinda. These are the kind of images I saw sometimes on the tellie. It is really nice though, just like the tourist manuals describe, the people really do play dominoes on the corners of the streets.

This is the other direction, but the same road, calle Hospital

Yes, a real Chinatown. It was cool, everything was kinda different. The buildings were painted, and there were restaurants everywhere. Strangely there weren’t many Chinese people….

Even the graffiti was Chinese

Just take a look at these prices. Imagine, camaron and langosta are shrimp and lobster respectively. Just LOOK AT THE GODDAMN PRICES.

That’s the group of people I was with. We encountered a Japanese bitch, and she was fun. The guy in the blue is Luis our Cuban friend, and most of the other people are Belizeans from my school. We were just really happy. And most of us were drunk.

That’s the capitolio. It was modeled after the real capitol building in Washington DC but this one is taller, it is 92 metres. I think it still serves as a seat of congress but most of the building is a tourist attraction. It looks better at night than it does during the day.

Habana, Habana and more Habana 9-16

That is obviously a statue of Alma Mater. She is spreading her arms (if she was spreading her legs it would have a very different meaning of welcome) to welcome the new minds to her death trap of studies. I currently have no idea who Alma Mater is, you can look it up yourself on wikipedia while you’re at it and lighten up my day.

This is a church in Miramar, the rich people section of cuba. As you drive on 5ta Avenida, you will realize why all the other buildings in vedado, centro and vieja look so old and dilapidated. Its because all the nice buildings, embassies and hotels are in Miramar. It is like driving through palm beach in Miami. It really is different, they even have good stores in Miramar.

This used to be the soviet union’s embassy. Nowadays its used as the Russian embassy. It is Huge. No doubt about it, they have 4 flights a week to Moscow. Da da, the daughter of the owner of a Casa Particular where my friends stayed at was-is studying in Moscow, isnt it funny?

The marti monument again. Its just so purrdy, and biiig and stuff. Its really nice for a national monument. Guess what, that’s a statue of José Martí again. Ugh you'll see this guy like everywhere.

Look at Che Guevarra. He even has his face on a building. I guess I should become a doctor, cure lepers and fight for the revolution of several countries before I get that done. Look at it this way, atleast that way the people will have something good to look at.


I was so hot and excited that I finally got my hands on real internet. Right after this picture was taken I realized that there was no MSN. What a cock-block. Oh the bitch on the picture is Louisa, my friend from Nauru.


Yep, that’s what we call some mean ass daikiris. That’s how they spell it here yes, I am not an idiot. But yes, they were amazing, and only 3 bucks a piece. Told you, it flows like water here.

That’s just me in a restaurant while I was waiting on my 2 dollar hamburger. Now THAT was one of the best burgers I have ever had in my entire life.

Habana, Habana and more Habana 1-8

Have you ever seen the bride of chuckie? Have you ever heard about voodoo and santería? Well this restaurant I ate at last weekend was like owned by a family that practiced santería. They had all kinds of these dolls over the place and they burned the cigars and candles too. Very very creepy yes, they all had yellow eyes.

That was the lobster-shrimp dinner we paid 20 bucks for. Little did we know that we could get much more food in Chinatown for less than 5 cuc a plate. You can imagine how robbed I felt, but nonetheless, the food was great. The 20 cuc included side dishes and whatnot.

That was the beautiful sunset on the Malecon. The buildings you can see in the distance are none other than the main buildings in Habana´s Vedado district. The wide one on the left is Edificio Focsa, and right in front of it you have the very famous Hotel Nacional.


This is Edificio Focsa. It was designed as a city within a city. Completely self-sufficient. All the inhabitants can work within the building. It has its own laundrette, restaurants and nightclub. I have never been, but I will have enough time to spend here in Cuba.

This is sunrise on the malecon. It was that really good Saturday night where I was so happy that I never went to sleep. The picture came out much better than in real life I think. It was really beautiful.


That is a statue of one of the Cuban national heroes, Jose Martí. He did some thing for education bla bla, nobody cares. And with that I mean everybody non Cuban. Cuz they love the guy, all schools have a portrait statue of him. He is holding a baby, and I don’t feel the need to translate whatever the hell it says on the base of the statue

This is on the malecon as well. I forgot what its called, but it is some convention centre, for concerts and no sé qué. Right behind it is the American foreign interests section where they display anti-communist messages on an electronic banner. Its funny really, they will do anything to try and take a crack at communism.

This is the main entrance to La Universidad de la Habana. It was founded in 1790 I think. And my Cuban friend-slash-tour-guide is doing chemical engineering there. It has many faculties, and it frustrates me even more to try and comprehend why ´they´ did not send me to Havana in stead of the llanuras of the west.