CUBAN CIGARS, TIMES SQUARE & FINNISH SAUNAS

Back In Time To Cuba
We left Cuba with more questions than we arrived with. It was our first glimpse at a socialist-run country and it was definitely one of the most intersting countries we’ve had a chance to visit. The people are poor but well educated and they all have free housing (so there’s no homeless). But they don’t have freedom of speech (at least against the government), and the government makes it very hard for Cubans to leave/see other countries is the region. America is still increasing its trade embargos on Cuba, trying to strangle the country’s economy, but somehow they survive and carry on.

Politics aside, Cuba was a fasinating place to explore. The old Spanish architecture of Havana is slowly crumbling away from buildings which haven’t been renovated for over 50 years. And the old American Fords and Chevys dominate the streets, along with the more recent Russian model cars. We spent 5 days in Havana looking around, sampling the rum, coffee and cigars.

Despite what seemed like a large variety of agricultural land the food in Cuba was pretty bad. On the street we ate greasy cheesy pizza or ham and cheese rolls. A night out at a restaurant meant the selection of one of 5 types of pork dish or, if you were lucky fried chicken or even luckier still, fish. Our best meals were definitely eaten from the local kitchen of our 'casa', the local houses that we stayed in.

We spent a week outside Havana to see the countryside. There is an area in north western Cuba which has limestone mounds like in Vietnam and Thailand. Here we met an old tobacco farmer who offered us a make-shift cigar (he actually rolled it right in front of us from dried leaves). This had us coughing for while, but it was smoother than expected. We also ventured as far east as the town of Trinidad on the south coast, and checked out the monument to Che Guevara in Santa Clara. All in all it was a fascinating country to visit.

Cooling Off East Coast USA
Transitioning from Cuba to North America, we spent 3 days in Los Angeles with Justin and Amity (great to see them again!). It was a bit of a shock to be back in LA, but not as much as a shock as when we arrived in New York City, our next stop. This was our first taste of cold weather for a while and it was only getting colder from here. Based out of a small hotel room in Uptown Manhattan, we saw Time Square, strolled through Central Park (beautiful this time of year), caught a Broadway Show and even tried our balance at ice skating in a night time rink near Central Station.







Student Life In Boston
We ventured north to Boston for a week to see our friends Bec and Gaj who are studying for their PhD’s at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), just down the road from Harvard. Being surrounded by such distinguished universities, we deceided to catch a few of the public lectures at MIT, including some progressive stuff in the areas of climate change, alternate fuels and development policy in Asia. We saw our first snow of the season in Boston, when the temperature dipped down to minus 6 (this felt pretty fresh to us after Central America for the last 7 months).

Freezing In Finland
We arrived at 9:00am in Helsinki and it was still pitch-black dark. The sun gets up here at 9:30am this time of year, only to promptly fade to sunset again by 2pm. From Helsinki we headed further north to a small town called Jyväskylä to meet with Dave Balshaw (a good friend from Melbourne). At over 62 degrees north it’s getting pretty close to the end of the world up there. It seemed crazy to me, but bicycles were the preferred form of transport around town. So we check out the town and surrounding lakes by bike, with Dave as our tour guide. The only saving grace from the cold were the saunas (which the Finns are pretty keen on), and you actually get so hot that you have to get out and stand in the snow for 5 minutes between sessions to cool down. Invigorating.

Next stop is Switzerland and then Germany for Christmas.