Showing posts with label Cuba. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Cuba. Show all posts

Sunday, February 25, 2007

Ola!

I know I know, where have a been all week right????
Well it was my second week of vacation and I've been enjoying it to the fullest. I've been knitting of course :)
I was working feverishly all week hoping to get a sweater I was working on finished in time for church this morning but by saturday afternoon I realized it just wasn't going to happen. I made the sleeves longer than the original pattern ending up needing to order another ball of yarn NUTS!! Oh well it will be done soon enough.
I know you're all shouting "Never mind the knitting what about Cuba??????"
Well Cuba was good, alot of mixed reviews and emotions but I definately wouldn't have changed going for the world, no matter how bad the food was *insert throwing up face here*
I don't know if I'll be able to get all of our vacation stories out in one post but we'll see how it goes.
First off I'm sure you're all aware now of my ability to vomit with pretty much any motion... :) Well guess what??? I DIDN'T PUKE!!!!! You don't know how awesome that is, I even ate food before and during the flights and still felt fine. My secret was a new medication recommended to me by the pharmacist, its called Bonamine. It did make me sleeping but I didn't care, it was a long flight home. So.... on to Cuba.
Cuba is a very poor country, and you're all saying yeah we know that but when I say poor I mean REALLY poor!!!
Don't get me wrong, everyone has food to eat and a place to live but thats it, all bare minimum. Some of the house were just tin walls and a tin roof propped up. It was absolutely awful the conditions these people were living in. Then there are all these people coming to the resorts, drinking their faces off and not moving their butts from the resorts. Unless you actually got off the resort you would have had NO idea of the poverty. Yes our tour operator said its a very poor country but to wasn't until we rented Moped's and went out on our own that we came across it all. 90% of our week there was spent touring the areas on our own and giving away the things we had brought for them. I have never seen anyone so grateful for a simple bar of soap. The things we take advantage for in this country is unbelievable.
On our last day there we rented a moped and searched for some people to unload the last of our gifts too. So we're out in the middle of no where driving down this *highway* (more like a normal road) and Moose says we probably should turn around, we don't want to run out of gas. Around we go and *i'm sure you know whats coming* yup we run out of gas..................... Couldn't happen to anyone else but us. Somehow though every bad thing that happens to us turns into a blessing. So there just so happens to be a "farm" of sorts across the road from where we were stranded. When i say farm I mean a run down house with a few goats and chickens outside. We go in and no say "No Gas!" We were well out of Varadero so the chance that someone speaks english is very minimal. One of the girls understood Gas and said ahhhh gasonlina. I will definately remember that word. It just so happens they had a car. Now this car was most likely something that had been passed down from generation to generation, a 1950's car. The guy ciphened out gas from his own car and gave it to us, not expecting anything in return. I can't get over the generosity of these people that have absolutely nothing to their name and yet they are willing to give whatever they have to complete strangers. If only the whole world worked like that, we wouldn't have the poverty that exists in these countries today. So before leaving we unloaded what we had left to give out. There were about 3 generations of the family there. One lady was sooo excited to get soap and deoderant that she was waving it at her family inside and smelling it.
We decided after our trip that we won't be going back to an all inclusive again. Moose can't sit still for two minutes so there definately has to be lots of things to do. The food wasn't too hot, we of course knew it wasn't going to be very good before we arrived and we did find something to eat everyday but a week of fries and pizza for lunch and dinner was just too much. The weirdest thing was there was NO MILK! Not one drop of pasturized milk on that island. The only thing we could find was powdered and condensed milk. How in the world can you live without milk?? Let me tell you I craved that stuff from the day I got there until we left.
Well I think I've babbled enough for today, i hope to have all my pics in a folder for you by the next post to browse through. In the meantime I leave you with one of my favourite moments of the trip.
That is the first time I've seen a real camel before. I just went over to ask the man if I could pet them and take a picture but before I knew it he had lifted me up onto its neck and gave Moose the camera to take a picture. Oh Miseur Camel you were oh so cute.

Friday, February 02, 2007

Winter wonderland

So I realized in my last post that I didn't tell you all where we are going.....
There will definately be alot of these there...
And I might also be able to pick up a few moves from this....
Thats right ya'll we're going to CUBA!!! I'm pretty excited! I've wanted to go to Cuba for a couple of years now and we are finally getting the chance to go. I can't wait to lay on that beach and not have to think about work or how cold it is.
Its actually nice out this morning, we got a big chunk of snow last night while I had a little nap by the fire :)
I was amazed when I went out to take this picture this morning how mild it was out. Now thats what i'm talking about. I could handle tons of snow if it was just mild out and not so frigid.

So Project Spectrum started yesterday and you'll remember me saying I have nothing in those colours to knit with and I didn't want to stray from my tweedy aran cardi. Well after yesterday's post it clicked and I remembered the sweater I had been DYING to make but didn't want to stop knitting the tweed. Well GUESS what colour the yarn is?????? It MUST be fate hehehe
Grey AND blue in the one yarn, how sweet is that. Now I didn't have the pattern book for the sweater, I did that on purpose so that I wouldn't start it before I had finished the current project but yesterday I went ahead and ordered it. Hopefully it will arrive before next weekend when we leave and I could cast on and take a sleeve with me. I also need to figure out what sock project I want to take with me. I don't want to do just a plain sock but I also don't want to have to look at a pattern every two seconds while i'm there. Any suggestions!

Sooo the mouse story...... yeah I heard the mouse in the wall again. Apparently Moose got a mouse, but not the RIGHT mouse, or maybe there were two of them. Who knows! So we'll have to see if we can locate the other one. Knowing my luck we'll come back and they will be all settled in the house, sprawled out on the couch infront of the fire or something!

Off to get some things done!