Cuba Libre!

Arrived back from Havana last night. I'm exhausted! I usually like to have a day off before going back to work but since I left the booking up to Gerwyn, we ended up arriving at 1:00 am and had to go back to work today. It was a rough morning I'll say. But I was very happy to wake up to a bright sunny and non-snowy day. After 7 days of 30 degrees and lots of sun, I welcome the cool breeze of Toronto.

Here's a quick recap of the trip: we stayed at the Blau Arenal, a 3 star resort about 30 mins from Havana. We booked that resort specifically for the free daily shuttle to Havana and boy was it worth it. Havana is absolutely gorgeous. Such character and so much history. To me, it was like the Paris of the Caribbean. The architecture was unbelievable and of course, the weather was H.O.T!! The beach at our resort was perfect, lots of sand and clear blue water. The resort itself was... well a 3 star to say the least. But as I said, we booked it for its proximity to the city and it didn't disappoint in that respect. I probably wouldn't recommend it to anyone with a high standard for cleanliness though. But after a few days, we settled in and it felt like home. It was nice to have a quiet place to relax after a busy day in the city. And we ended up meeting a lot of great guests. Our last night was spent getting drunk with a couple of Norweigans, Germans, fellow Canucks and an English bloke who had me in stitches. We asked him if he knew Stuart Milner but unfortunately, no. But Ev, you can tell Stuart that Brian O'Donnell from London says hello! He taught me some great new English terms, unfortunately I seem to have forgotten them already. That's what happens after 3 or 4 Cuba Libres. It was quite interesting and very cool to see all these people, some who could barely speak English, all communicate together. Sometimes we had to act words out, but you know me and Charades, it was like my dream come true!
After a week of "couple-time", I could tell Gerwyn was craving a little "party-time", we both managed to be the last ones standing and ended the evening around 2:30 am.

Gerwyn smoked cigars like a chimney and practically lived in the sea salt water for as long as he could. We both managed to get partial sun burns, mine is especially odd areas as usual. My body looks like I was in a crazy fist fight. Black spots everywhere.

All in all a relatively relaxing, very interesting vacation. We didn't bring back too many souvenirs, I bought a painting, Gerwyn bought cigars, but we have plenty of memories (and over 500 photos) to remember the trip.

Its nice to finally be home. I didn't realize what a luxury it was to have a toilet that can flush paper and water you can drink from the tap. I'm looking forward to crawling into my own bed tonight!