Thursday December 25, 2014

We almost missed breakfast this morning. After our late night at church we slept until 7:40 am, breakfast was at 8:00 am. We both managed to shower and be at the table in time for breakfast of fruit, bread, cheese and eggs juice,and coffee. After the good breakfast, I rinsed our cycle clothes and then both Ralf and I cleaned our bikes. We were all done by 10:30, when Ralf continued his transformation to becoming Cuban. At 10:30 our elderly casa owner (Richard) offered Ralf a shot of whiky – this is not a spelling mistake this is how they say whisky. Ralf was drinking whisky at 10:30 in the morning. Richard told Ralf he didn’t drink very often, and when he did it was only one drink. It was Christmas – Feliz Navidad.

We then walked into the Town and while I updated the blog, Ralf went to get some more cleaning rags as he thought we had used them all. By visiting half the shops in town he managed to get cleaning rags, Q.Tips and some peanut bars, it took him an hour!

After lunch of a sandwich and beer we sat in the square and watched people. We came back to the casa where I spent the afternoon reading and Ralf went out again to get his beard trimmed. It cost 20 pesos – less than a dollar, it looks nice trimmed.

At one stage this afternoon Ralf mentioned that he had been dreaming about a roast turkey, with all the trimmings and we both added extras to our imagined Christmas dinner: roast turkey, brussel sprouts, roast potatoes, and mashed potatoes, roast parsnips (for Ralf) carrots and gravy mmmmm lovely. Dessert would be pecan pie and vanilla ice-cream for me, apple pie and lots of scoops of any ice-cream for Ralf.

After dinner last night we went to the ice-cream parlour. In typical Cuban fashion, this is not as simple as going up to a counter and picking your ice-cream. You order from a board and pay, you are given a piece of paper with your order on it, then you are ushered to a table where there may be others sitting or some other people will join you and then you give your order to a waitress who disappears. Eventually she returns with your order. While we were waiting we noticed the various tables had ordered multiple dishes of ice-cream. I had ordered a banana split and Ralf had ordered ice-cream ensalada and guava. We had assumed that it would all come in one dish. My banana split did come in one dish, but was quite small. Ralf’s ice-cream had three scoops of ice-cream in one dish and then two more scoops in another dish. The two young men who were also sitting at our table had three dishes of ice-cream each. When I started to eat from Ralf’s dish one of the young men offered me his third dish with 2 scoops of guava ice-cream. I declined but he insisted, so I ate his dish of guava ice-cream.

Tonight we had a really good Italian meal, the bruschetta was excellent and so was the spaghetti. When we got back to the casa, we chatted to Richard (casa owner) who told us that the US Secretary of State was visiting Cuba in January! Things are moving quickly and he said it was very good for Cuba to have renewed relations, good for trade and commerce.