just got back from a family vacation to cuba like yesterday morning at 6:40am-ish due to our plane being delayed again... at least this time it wasn't like freaking 19 hours or something ridiculous like that...
yes you heard me, our flight to leave for cuba was scheduled for 1pm departure on the 21st of dec... they require you to check-in like 3 hours in advance... SOOOOO my family and i went to the calgary airport at 10am. just started lining up when it was announced that the flight was being delayed to 10:15pm at night... freaking 9 hour delay!!! omg... so like that was totally horrible... especially since we were dropped off by a friend and didn't drive to the airport ourselves... so we were stuck at the airport waiting like fools... good thing was there were quite a few other families that were going on the same trip with us, so at least we weren't waiting alone... thank god...
so i met a couple of the kids from the other families... most of them were a lot younger than myself (man i feel old now... before when we go on vacations i'm the young one... sigh...) anyway, 2 of the girls there were old family friends that i haven't seen in a while, sisters - kailie and linshia, 15 and 13 years old respectively. then the rest were new people: austin (17), xinxin (20), lisa (18), emily (15), raymond (17), and a couple of others... we were all pretty much rotting away in the airport... at least the airport compensated SOME by giving us voulchers for food... though they were cheap and only gave like $15 per person... like seriously... it's an airport... food and everything else costs like an arm and a leg >.>"" cheapasses... haha
then to make things worse... plane was delayed yet again... sometime around 1:45am... so finally at around 11pm we checked in and boarded around 1:30am... so now at this point, you all probably are feeling relieved for us... but wait! it gets worse... since it was fucking cold in calgary during the time we're leaving (the main reason for all the delays), they needed to de-ice the plane with some special fluid... and for us... you guessed it... they ran out and the spraying truck had mechanical problems or some shit... we didn't leave till 3:15am...
you may think "oh well, at least you finally left..." but wait... we all had reservations for an all inclusive resort in cuba, from the 21st to the 28th. so that was one freaking day GONE! WASTED! AT THE CALGARY AIRPORT!!! dear god i was surprised there weren't an angry mob of people storming in the airport... but oh well what can you do right?
so after countless uncomfortable sleeping positions and a couple of hours... we finally arrived at CUBA!!! w00t!!! haha
anyway here i'm going to talk briefly about the country itself... those that are reading this... you guys are either my friends or just bored out of your mind... more so than me, the writer... so indulge... for this entry is gonna be gi-normous =)
k well let's get started.
cuba's more official name would be the republic of cuba... but for convenience purposes, i'm just gonna type cuba :D it's capital, as well as its largest city is havana, and its official language as you guys probably all already know is spanish. it's a single-party communist state, current president/premier is raul castro. its independence from spain was declared in 1868, and republic declared from the u.s in 1902. they use 2 types of currency there: cuban peso (cup) and convertible peso (cuc). the cuban peso is used by the locals, and tourists who are not permanent residents of the country cannot exchange for them, instead tourists much exchange whatever currency they bring in for the convertible peso. 1 convertible peso = 1.32 canadian dollar, and 1 convertible peso = 25 cuban peso (more or less). so like if you tip a local taxi driver or something 1cuc that's like 25 bucks to them pretty much, you can make their day :D
so moving on... cuba is an island located in the northern caribbean, and its main island is the 17th largest in the world. it's culture is very diverse, but primarily consist of those of spain and africa... mmm what else... oh, they're very passionate about the atheletic world, and baseball is probably the most popular sport there... i wore my black and white chicago sox cap there and when i entered the market place and walked around the city, there were like locals asking for my hat left and right haha.... i would've probably given it to one of them if it wasn't for the fact that i like the hat's look and it was expensive xDD;;;
k enough of boring facts and stuff... on with my glorious vacation :D
dec 22nd - day 1
after FINALLY arriving at oasis varadero 1920 (our resort)... and getting a couple of hours of shut eye on the plane (first time i was able to sleep on a plane... :D) we headed for the pool and beach... exploration came soon after ^___^
we buried xinxin in the sand and gave him sand boobs... though everytime he breathed they would crack and fall apart... and most of the time they were lopsided when we tried to build them xDD;;;; it was fun though haha
so there were 2 pools on the resort, each beside its own snack bar... oh and did i mention the all inclusive includes an open bar? with no age limit? haha the 12 and 13 year old kids that came with us were ordering cocktails and rum and shit haha i bet they had a blast xDD;;;
anyway nothing too eventful on the first day, although we did find out that the food tasted like SHIT!! man i didn't see that coming from a 4 star resort... haha it was basically 3 flavors: bland, salty or just plain disgusting...
dec 23rd - day 2
9am in the morning, went to listen to some orientation about activities and tours the resort offered after breakfast... and soon after we tried to decide on a schedule... man and i thought my group of friends were indecisive when it came to making decisions and stuff... 9 asian couples all with kids are just as bad... and they crowded around the sunwing (our travel agency) rep that was in charge of signing people up for the tours... i felt bad for the guy, he must've been scared with so many loud asian parents around hahaha
but in the end... it was decided that we were gonna go on the havana one-day tour and the catamaran cruise.. i wanted to sign my family up for a jeep safari, it turned out that the tour guide will be driving a seperate jeep from us if we were to go and one of us would have to be the driver... problem comes in when he said that the jeep would be standard... FUCK!! I'VE NEVER REGRETTED NOT TAKING STANDARD DRIVING LESSONS SO BAD IN MY LIFE!! haha damn... so that was a flop of a plan... >.>""
as for the rest of this day, my parents and i took a cab and pieced out away from everyone else to downtown varadero. there we walked down the one street of downtown, shopped a bit at the souvenir stores, and took massive amounts of pictures like the giddy tourists that we were...
oh and cuz i was wearing my no grip flats, and it was kinda raining that day, i totally slipped on a broken piece of tile on the street and fell on my ass and scrapped my foot >.>"" i was such a n00b haha
aside from that though, we also took a tour on those round mini yellow open cabs around dt... went to another beach near there, and the market place... bought a couple of random things and headed back the the resort.
met up with austin, raymond and xinxin (the 3 guys that were closest to my age that i pretty much hung out mostly with for the rest of the vacation) at the cohiba piano bar in the main hotel building, took advantage of the open bar and chatted about stupid things that i no longer remember cuz they were so random... after dinner we migrated to the 24hr snack bar outdoors by the main pool and watched people dance and sing :D
dec 24 - day 3
havana one-day tour~~~ took a tour bus early in the morning at like 8am to the capital city havana (aprrox a 2.5 hour drive from varadero) and went on a day tour of the city. the morning we walked with the tour guide and stopped at various tourist locations, old houses, museums, squares, marketplace, etc. and had lunch at a chinese restaurant in asian... haha to think we went all the way to cuba to only have chinese food again... though the chinese food was hardly authentic in anyway... better than hotel food at least. after lunch it was free timeeeee w00t!! wandered around the city ourselves, took a pic with a dressed up cuban lady with a giant cigar for 1peso! i was totally pimpin' ^__~ then after free time, we stopped by a couple of other places including the parliament building and chinatown and headed back to the resort afterwards
got back, the 4 of us pretty much hid away in the cohiba bar.. haha i think this day was the day that i drank the most ever since i've never been a big drinker at all... found out that i could hold my alcohol pretty decently :D, matched the guys drink for drink and i was totally fine by the time i went home, when 2 of them were pretty messed after xDD;; we bought 2 montecristo cigars and smoked them in the bar, that was interesting... i've never been a fan of smoking so i only took a few puffs of theirs... it's a lot better than cigrettes but still not my thing lol
dec 25 - day 4
free day!!!! after the tour yesterday today was a relaxing day... got up in the morning, went for breakfast then headed for the beachhhh!!! splashed around on the beach, booked a mini catamaran sail tour just around the resort, 10min out to sean and 10min sailing back.. it was pretty sweet!! felt soooo good on the boat dragging my foot in the water the whole way and having the water splashing up against you when you hit each wave... it was great, i would've loved to spend more time on it, but they had a busy schedule xDD;;
anyway, spashed around on the beach, the guys buried austin in sand, and piled it on him so much that he couldn't even budge let alone get up by himself hahaha
while they were doing that i was busy taking a nap under the warm sun... ahhhhh... sun bathing.... it felt great :D
then when i was heading back to take a shower early afternoon, i passed by the pool near our side of the resort when i ran into the younger kids.... i was ambushed and pushed into the pool... the FREEZING COLD WATER!!! omg.. i was soooo warm from my afternoon sun bathing that the pool water felt like ice... frick haha but w/e it was fun regardless, i had to get them back, so i ended up splashing around there for an hour or so before actually heading back to shower xDD;;
after dinner we fell into our nightly routine of chilling at various places on the resort and chatting about pretty much everything and nothing haha
dec 26 - day 5
CATAMARAN CRUISEEEEE!!! AWW YEAHHH!!! haha finally!! been looking forward to this the past few days ever since we signed up! so when i say cruise here.. i'm not talking about like those luxury cruises like the ones that go to the caribbean or alaska or anything... it was like a giant sail boat with a small center bar with chairs all around it, and a lower floor with bathrooms... then there's 2 giant nets in the front of the sail boat where you can climb out to sit or lay on to tan and get splashed =DDD it was sweet!! the wind felt sooooo good ^___^
anyway this was probably THE coolest part of the trip in my opinion
we stopped in the middle of the ocean and went snorkeling in the open sea... just strap on a floating foam strip around your waist and jump off the boat into the middle of the sea and swim around the boat while looking at all the marine life below water... there were so many fishes swimming all around you, bumping and grazing against you haha
the waves were a bit big that day though, so the captain and the crew had to keep an eye on everyone to make sure no one drifts too far away from the boat... but it was SWEET!! sooo cool!! once we boarded the ship again, we found that if you throw food into the water, the fishes would just swarm towards the feed... it was like a massive orgy of fish fighting for the little piece of food.. HAHAHA
then for lunch we stopped on a island in the caribbean sea and had lobster :D the beach there was the best one we saw during the trip... the sand was white and so fine that it almost seem like it's dust/dirt... it was amazing... felt great under your foot, and the water was a beautiful green-blue color, and calm too compared to the one back at the resort... we spent a good hour there swimming around and dunking people into the ocean... unfair though, how the other 3 were guys and could totally own me while i can't do anything back haha... sad.. xDD;;;
anyway after that, we sailed to another small island where we went SWIMMING WITH DOLPHINES!!! that was crazy cool too =D
we split into two different groups and the dolphines would swim around and under you, and flip over belly up for you to touch and stuff, it was so sweet!! they were so cute <333 routine =)
dec 27 - day 6
another free day, so nothing much different from the other free day xD morning me and the 3 guys went to the pool, and after splashing around for a bit, i decided to go grab a book and read lying under the sun while the guys do their thing in the pool haha after an hour or so, i was nice and toasty when we went and got lunch OH! i forgot to mention that we discovered around day 3 that the best food on the resort is this chopped sandwich thing that a hut near the main dining hall makes... it always has a huge line up cuz i guess everyone else think the buffet/restaurant food's shit too xDD anyway, we had that for lunch, and afternoon we decided to go to the other beach and play in the giant waves!! it was a windy day, so the waves were huge! but bad thing for me was that i was wearing my best friend's bikini that i borrowed... and the center REFUSES to stay... and the bikini top is ALWAYS shifting... and as you can all guess... the waves didn't help one bit... i'm pretty sure once or twice i emerged from being battered in the waves with the bikini top half shifted off my boobs... o.o and whenever the waves got a bit stronger, my bottom would just want to come off too... LOL it was major awkward, i had one arm around my boobs and one hand on my ass to try and keep my swim suit from just flying off and i end up skinny dipping... =___=" haha but it was so much fun that i didn't want to leave... though after awhile the waves were just getting ridiculous and if i were to keep splashing around i was bond to lose my top... so i walked back alone to find my parents at the pool with 3 beach chairs =D PERFECT! more sun bathing!!! for the next hour i was able to finally get a decent tan for my pastey white legs =D THEY MATCH MY ARMS NOW!! YAY!!! HAHAHA
so after dinner... hang out time continued haha..
at this point, we've pretty much already tried everything on the bar menu: rum punch, pina colada, mulato, daiquiri, mojito, sex on the beach, gin and tonic, long island ice tea, red/blue varadero (which is like diff flavored pina colada), havana special, ron collin's, bloody mary, caesars... uh.... and w/e else... haha
dec 28 - day 7
last day, leaving day... nothing much this day, we got locked out of our room in the morning cuz the lock fucked up and our chambermaid had to open it for us, but other than that nothing exciting... check out proceeded before noon, and we chilled in the lobby and around the hotel till around 5, where we got dinner and then headed to the airport at 6:30pm man when we got to the airport it was PACKED!! reminded me of china... haha sea of people... except everything reeked of cigar... haha.. but good thing was we didnt' have to wait too TOO long.. although we were slightly late on take off it was no where near as bad as the delay we had coming here... however half way through the plane ride, one of the girls that came with us on the trip but didn't really hang out with us cuz she was sick had troubles breathing and the flight attendent had to bring her an oxygen mask and everything... asked whether if someone on the plane was a doctor or not... then it got bad, and we stopped at the regina airport so that ambulances could come to take her to the hospital... turned out she had a lung infection... =( not cool.... they sent their eldest daughter back to calgary alone so that she could take care of the luggage and return to ut in time for school when the mom and dad stayed with their younger daughter at the regina hospital... good news is now (dec 30) they're back in calgary, though she's still under treatment, they're at least back home.. hope she'll be alright >.<""
anyway due to the delays, we arrived in calgary at around 6am in the morning instead of the planned 1-2am... got home around 7am and slept till like 1pm... lazed around for a whole day on the 29th... and now i'm writing all this down so in a few years i can look back and remember everything :) anyway i think i'm done my report on the trip for now... maybe i'll come back and update with some pictures once i sort through everything :)
