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.