beach

The first week of classes is over, and so far I have yet to fall asleep in any them. Our professors definitely have an old school style of teaching. The classes are all lecture with very little discussion if any. This is a completely different way to learning for me. I am used to classes being very discussion based and professors answering questions throughout their ‘lectures’ versus holding a small question session for the last ten or so minutes of class. The new style will take some getting used to.

Last week a few of us explored more of Habana Vieja, which was nice. We went to the largest street market in Cuba. There were tons of artists, and crafters who sold a lot of the same things. I bought some jewelry for about a dollar a piece which I thought was a really good deal. Looking around the market I got the feeling that is it set up mostly for tourists given some of the prices on things. Nevertheless it is easy to strike a bargain, simply by asking. We spent about an hour walking around the market and talking to people before moving on to the Floridita, one of the bars/restaurants that Hemingway frequented. It is said that he would drink thirteen daiquiris without moving and then get up and leave without one stumble. The bar claims that he also wrote For Whom the Bell Tolls there, but I haven’t researched the claim. After we paid about $7 for a drink we hung out in one of the Plazas nearby which had a small book fair going on. Next week starts the main book fair for Cuba. It is apparently huge and authors from the entire world, especially Latin America are represented. We have been told by many people that it is a must.

Yesterday we went to the beach for the first time. It is about a twenty minute drive from the edge of the City of Havana but about thirty minutes from our residence. Having never been to the Caribbean or anywhere tropical, the beach was absolutely wonderful. It basically looked like a postcard image. Many things struck me about the beach. The first was that it is not built up like I had expected. There were no huge resorts lining the beach, but rather only a few small ones. Perhaps the most interesting thing is that farther down the beach from where we were there was a small resort and police patrolled it. We thought this might be due to the laws that forbid Cubans from talking at length and ‘hanging out’ with tourists. It was obvious that the resort was all tourists and since we were not staying at the resort we were on the Cuban section of the beach. I don’t know if this is the exact reason that it is patrolled but it seems to make sense, and would explain why some of the group’s Cuban friends who came with were stopped at least once by the police and questioned briefly. The dynamic between tourists and Cuban’s due to the law is very interesting. Little contact is made except with the Cuban’s who work in tourism.

Despite the laws we have not had too hard of a time meeting Cubans. By now most people in our neighborhood know that we are not tourists and usually people ask who we are. Once they know that we are students and are living here they have no problem speaking to us or showing us around parts of the city. Everyone is friendly and wants to be your friend so they almost always ask where you are from and why you are in Cuba.