A Land of Freedom and Opportunity

I just returned from Cuba. I was quite happy with the trip. Cuba was better than I expected. The beach at Veradero is made of beautiful white sand. The sand has a soft powdery texture which I'd never experienced before. Largely the weather was good. There were a couple of days with a little bit of cloud cover. Mostly the skies were blue and the weather was warm. I spent my days at the beach, because let's be frank, you can spend time at a pool in Canada. I read a decent John LeCarre book called absolute friends while at the beach. Simple reading. Makes me realize how slow I read now. A long time ago I could have read that book in a couple of days. I guess 20 years of depression will do that to you. Anyway, the hotel was magnificent. The place was new, and therefore it was very clean. The buffet food was really good, enjoyed it immensely. The wait staff were pretty attentive, but there were a few meals where I didn't get a drink. When I compared notes with a few travellers who stayed at different hotels it was obvious that my hotel was both a decent deal and quite good overall. The party scene for singles was not great, but there were still at least a dozen people willing to go out each night. I kind of latched onto a couple from Ottawa and made further inroads with people through them. Kind of my typical pattern I guess. Two nights I was absolutely trashed, probably not the best idea given my mental state. But hey, I was on vacation and I needed to have a last hurrah. One day I went to Havana. Very interesting place. I liked the architecture. The tour stopped at some museums, but city museums are not the most interesting. At night I took in the world famous Tropicana show. It was quite spectacular, although the seats for our tour group were poor (located at the edge of the stage). The tour day in Havana was loooong though. It was something like 2:30 in the morning before I arrived back at my hotel. All in all it was a good trip. I probably should have taken it easier on the partying, because I'm not as rested as I should be, but whatever. You only live once. It would have been more fun to do some of this stuff when I was younger.