Heeey everybody! It's Linda and Helene. We are entering our 7th day in Havana, Cuba. You all won't believe all the stufff we've experienced in such short time. And Cuba truly isn't all glamorous vacation spot. Some places reminds us of war time ruins, while others are run down architectural beauties. Most of the cars are 50 years old cadillacs, and offer a quite bumpy ride. Soap and toilet paper are rare commodities, but there's no shortage of the cuban's hospitality. This place really is unique and the charm of a happy people and music everywhere makes it all worth it.

So, wanna know what we've been up to? One day 1 we hung around the old part of La Habana, with a tour guide showing us some of the hot historical spots (including Che Guevara sights and old revolusion builings). Later that day we accidentially bumped into a starving American guy--which we ended up rooming with at a casa particular (staying with a cuban family). They are such awesome and caring people, giving us lots of necesary advice. We've been guests at an intimate concert with the Buena Vista Social Club remainers. So cool!
We've been on the beach, where we learned how to salsa by some local boys... Then later we hung out with our American awesomeness for some pizza and went to a salsa show.
Allright, here's some serious cuban cultural experience: On day three we got caught by the Cuban police! They brought us to the station after having hung out with some cuban boys on the street. Apperantly, this is quite common--we learned why later on (from our "dad" in the casa). Four police officers brought us into a small room, marked "inmigracion". While we were sitting there, kinda freaking out, the cops were asking us what the guys did and to see our ID/passports--which we OFCOURSE had left at home that day. Despite them being very suspicios of us, they let us go... So this is why cuban police took us in: Cuban teenagers, mostly guys hang arounbd waiting for white tourists to be "friends with". This meaning they see us as either a meal, a drink, a plane ticket etc. So now we've learned two lessons: always bring ID, and always be picky and skeptical to locals. :P
We've been hanging out with some high class peeps as well, this American guy has a lot of contacts. A famous cuban painter, as well as a famous agricultural speaker and some other locals.
Next day we went for a 3 hrs salsa course with the coolest hiphop-salsa guys ever. We got pretty good, and went out to show some moves later that same night. The American guy has shown himself an awesome and super cool friend--so he's always with us.
Then we joined the entire local people of Havana for "Feria del Libro" a book festival, which we combined with the Che Guevara museum and a chileno/argentine/cuban concert in the sunset. Today we went to the revolution museum and then walked all over the place to find pizza and an ATM (minibank).

Havana is a blast, there's always so much going on, our "madre and padre" are telling us everyday: "hay una fiesta esta noche" (there's a party tonight), and we're like "tonight too????". And when we get back earlier than the traditional cuban, they're like: "are you guys back already? did you not drink enough?" They are soo funny, and they teach us soo much about the cuban culture. Our American, Byron teaches us about international sustainable agriculture and relocalazation of production--whish is like the opposite of the American materialism. Such an interesting subject while we're here discovering the biggest opposition to American over-the-top-availability of products and services. He knows sooo much about everything!

Tomorrow we're jumpin' on the first bus to Trinidad, an UNESCO world heritage city, where lots of history and beautiful architecture awaits us. We've also gotten tips about some nice beaches there. Byron might come after.

That's it for now folks. Internet on Cuba isn't all that great.... We try to upload some crazy pics--but don't know if that worked out.... So we'll write ASAP. Stay tuned :)