Havana, Cuba (New Year's Eve 2003)

(I took this picture on New Year's Eve in Havana. It looks like this guy started toasting the New Year a little early).


Day 13

We did some touristy stuff today. Saw more of the city and took lots of pictures. Havana is a great walking city. However, I would highly recommend renting a car. It isn’t a cheap option but you have the freedom to go wherever you want whenever you want. It’s an easy city to drive in since there are not too many cars on the road. The only problem is if you go outside of the city, since there are virtually no signs to direct you where to go. We walked on the Malecon and decided to stop by a café. It turns out it was a Chinese Restaurant believe it or not. Some young kid was pestering Stu. Stu was taking pictures and this 18 year old kid followed him down to the Malecon. We had to chase him away. Stu ended up meeting this girl and we invited her over to our table to have a drink. He ended up leaving with her.

TAD and I walked around and took more pictures. We had a drink at the café next to the Ingleterra. It was slow since it was NYE. Tad was a good influence on me. Usually I'm always in a party mode but Tad is really easy going and laid back and just liked doing simple things. He was starting to rub off on me.

The girl I was going to spend NYE with was acting flaky and appeared to be having family problems. I really didn't feel like dealing with her problems on NYE. I talked to Stu's girl and she confirmed her plans to show up and meet us at my apartment. I told her to bring 2 of her beautiful friends. She said no problem. TAD and I had to decide who would see who. We had this problem another night. I gave him the option to take the first or last girl that walked in. He chose the first. When the girls arrived I was really disappointed but there was nothing I could do. We planned to spend NYE at Macumba for one of the hottest gigs in town. One of the hottest bands in Cuba was playing. (Charanga Habanera). I figured worst case we could pay their entrance fee and then drink a little and leave. We were told it was a $20 cover to enter. When we got to Macumba there was a line. I told them we had reservations. They weren’t letting anyone without reservations in. Many people were walking away. We made our way to the front of the line and I again told them we had reservations. I guess it was impossible since they weren’t taking reservations just for the entrance. Only if you had their NYE dinner special you were allowed on the sacred list.

In any case they told us to stand to the side and this rude bouncer told us to go back to the line. Stu was especially annoyed but couldn’t really argue in Spanish so kept telling me to. I tried a few times to talk to someone with authority but the bouncer wouldn’t let me in. I figured money talks and bull crap walks. I had the telephone number and called the club on my cell phone. I told the lady that answered that I was in line with 5 of my friends and I had us$100 to spend to get us in ASAP. Stu put in $50 and I put in $50 and we essentially bought our way into the hottest gig in town without reservations. The cover was $40 per person instead of the $20 that they advertised. Oh well, like anything else in Cuba…. What can you do?? Unfortunately only Stu's girl was cute. My girl had a cute face was just not my type. Truth be told TAD’s girl was downright scary. It turns out the two girls were cousin’s of Stu's girl.

TAD and I thought if we drank heavily that would solve our problems. As predicted, it did not. My girl was cute but just had this really bad attitude. I tried pulling out all the punches to butter her up but it wasn’t happening. It was getting late and TAD and I decided we must leave and look for girls somewhere else. Honestly I didn’t care if we met other girls or not. I just wanted to leave these girls. It wasn’t a good situation. Stu’s girl is bright and figured out we just weren’t interested. I told my girl that I had a stomach ache and had to leave. TAD didn’t make any excuse. He barely talked to his girl as he didn’t want to give her any hope whatsoever. They just asked for taxi fare home. We each gave them $20 and I explained to Stu’s girl that there were many drunk Italian guys and I’m sure the girls could meet other guys up if they put their hearts into it. (I was happy to hear the next day from Stu that both girls hooked up with drunk Italians. I’m sure the guy that hooked up with TAD’s girl woke up regretting coming to Cuba).

By this point it was very late. It was 3:00 AM on NYE. The chances of hooking up were not in our favor but we took a taxi ride to La Chorrera. Predictably there were very few cute girls in the club. We both met a few girls but TAD and I decided to cut our losses and just go home. It was after 4 AM at this point.