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ask and ye shall recieve
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Church built by slaves to attend service and other things during the colonial era, taken near the Malecón and right on the other side of the next photo:
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These two buildings stand in a square, with the fountain somewhat in the middle. This part of the district is very popular for street artists and more high-end stores and art exhibits. Police were also very present in this part of Havana
We obviously also visited Revolution Square and got to enter up into the tower (which is the tallest building in Havana)
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Statue of the national hero of Cuba, José Martí, who was a poet and renowned writer. Inside this building is a museum of both contemporary arts dedicated to the revolution and historical artifacts of the leaders and battles.
(view from the statue into the square, it's common to see cars like those cruise around as taxis)
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This is one of said pieces of art, which is an image of Che created entirely out of pencils and ink bottles, to symbolize the great mobilization of school children to eradicate illiteracy across the entire country.
The entire building was empty except for the staff when we went inside, so we had unrestricted access to a lot of stuff including the elevator to the top of the monument tower;
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This is the view from the tallest accessible building in Havana. You can see the parliamentary building from here;
(Note the similarity between the Capitol Building in the U.S and the Cuban parliament in the distance)
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We also got to eat in the restaurant sitting at the second tallest point in Havana. This is the view from the window next to my seat in said restaurant. A clear view of the Malecón and the road following it, and endless ocean beyond.
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Various anti-capitalsm/America murals placed throughout Havana:
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We spent the majority of our time in Havana visiting collective farms, schools and universities that all took great interest in not only our appearance, but also our language and the differences in culture and mannerism. But all this was arranged through the Cuban embassy, so I doubt it's possible for any American/foreigner.
Most of the schools and universities have busts of Lenin, and follow the principles of José Martí. They also have rooms dedicated to the revolution and leaders.
We mostly ate at the hotel or at a privately owned restaurant in the middle of the city. The restaurant was (by Cuban standard) very expensive, but due to currency and economy differences it was actually about the same price as our school cafeteria at home.
Onto Cienfuegos, the province that we spent a lot of time in doing more relaxing stuff. Among many things that included joining street parties, taking taxis 20km out to go to beaches, walking the streets and repairing cars with strangers on the sidewalk. There we also visited a school dedicated to music and arts named after the artist Beny Moré, and a school dedicated to training kids for competitions in sports.
We also visited a swamp that held the original natives of Cuba, discovered by explorers. We went through the swamp on jetskis though, so it was difficult to take pictures. I don't have many.
While Cuba is a very colorful place, Cienfuegos is the place that was the prettiest to me personally. Brightly coloured buildings, well-kept streets and pristine old American cars. It is named La Perla del Sur (pearl of the south) in Cuba, and also made the UNESCO list iirc.
I don't quite remember what the current function of this building was, but it was once owned by a wealthy merchant way back before Cuba had it's revolution. It is right on the shorefront, in the middle of the market district of this city.
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The following pictures are all taken within the same square;
A bust of one of the more influential regional historical figures. His name escapes me though, sadly. The entire park was incredibly well kept and clean, not a singular piece of trash.
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In the background of this bust you can see a grey building;
This building is an old, maintained and perfectly functioning Victorian theater built by a businessman for Cienfuegos. You had to pay to take pictures inside though, so I didn't get any pictures. But trust me when I say that you wouldn't be able to tell that that theater was a hundred plus years old. It was immaculate
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A slightly lower quality picture of the main street with all the stores, grocery shops and clothing shops. This is just up the street from the park previously pictured.
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Every school we visited had a performance for us, whether it was theatrical, a ballet or musical. This was taken in the musical school (obviously) and was an acoustic performance of one of Beny Moré's songs. Later the same day we also had a dance lesson with the students, and at night went to "Club Beny Moré" (and got shitfaced)
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If you haven't caught on yet, Cienfuegos is a very musically inspired city. It's not uncommon to find street performances and orchestras suddenly turning up to play music together. This picture was taken on a bus we rented to visit the PE school (pics will follow), and was just a random gathering of people in the morning cool, to play music on the main street.
Note the people with courierbags on their way to work, stopping to listen in
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We arrived at the PE school and got shown their facilities. They were very proud to show us their computers from the 90's, and assured us that it was the top of the line tech available to them. Schools out there don't have windows since it's so hot and humid, so you don't need them. Even at night it didn't dip below 25C while we were there.
Since it was a PE school, they saw fit to challenge us to volleyball for eternal glory or shame to our respective countries. They caught us lacking by not telling us this beforehand, so we didn't bring any clothes for training, and had to do the game in the midday sun in our regular clothes.
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We won 13-9, and they took it very well. They were very eager to greet us, take pictures with us and talk with us with their limited English throughout the entire affair. So somewhere out there, there's a picture of me standing with 12 Cuban schoolgirls who all wanted a picture with me.
They didn't ask individually, the girl in school uniform on the left asked for herself and brought all of her friends afterwards without telling me.
These are pictures from the swamp containing reconstructed buildings and living areas from indigenous people. There was no wind in this area at all, zero. With an insane humidity and heat it was a blessing to ride around on jetskis.
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The final location we visited was The Bay of Pigs. Historically important to the Cubans as it's the place they "beat back the American invaders". There's actually a museum there with countless weapons, uniforms and vehicles belonging to both American and Cuban forces. They had a no-picture policy without payment, so I didn't get any pictures of that either.
The bay itself was a really nice spot, pictures doesn't do it justice at all so I didn't take a whole lot. Spent an entire day there on the beach, in the water and in the bar talking to an Australian couple on a bike tour of the country.
Said bar was just to the right of where I took this picture. This is the spot that had the best coconuts out of all the places we visited. Can't describe to you how nice fresh picked coconut water is if you've been on the road for most of the day.
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This building complex is connected to the entire beach area and bar that I was talking about, and is how you get down here. Nice, well-kept and colourful like most of Cienfuegos. The people here were exceptionally nice and laidback.
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The Bay of Pigs was probably the least memorable location, but out of the rest of the places we went that's understandable. It was by far one of the best beach locations though, but it just doesn't hold a candle to the revolution museum in the center of Havana, and the street/school life of Cienfuegos.
It's the best trip I've ever been on in my life, loved every second of it despite spending a day on the shitter because of a suspicious looking carbonara.
All in all, I think this is the best picture I took on the trip @Subeh
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ama if you want
oh hey this thread is still alive and not locked?
great job guys.
so dude n i meeting on the 17th on our collective days off, mom saw my pride shoes and kept asking if i was gay repeatedly
me n him talked for a little while and we wouldn't just stop talking, it was nice
please follow through and suck his dick in the park.
I GOT YOU THIS FAR AND NOW I WILL GET YOU FARTHER
Hey man, be glad you’ve at least had a few dates... My last date was with my bottle of bourbon as I cried myself to blackout for having never even held a hand beforescreming I'm spending pride month isolated and can't go out to any events that coulda happened.
pretty much stopped using grindr and tinder becus it became so pointless and all the hotties are like 200KM so no chance for post-lockdown dates yay.
I think I'm a hopeless romantic tbh
Hey man, be glad you’ve at least had a few dates... My last date was with my bottle of bourbon as I cried myself to blackout for having never even held a hand before
Sucks man, I'd be giving a hug rn if I could ;_;Hey man, be glad you’ve at least had a few dates... My last date was with my bottle of bourbon as I cried myself to blackout for having never even held a hand before