Thanksgiving in Cuba

Not American thanksgiving but the Canadian, which happens on the 2nd Monday in October. This story is from my 2007 thanksgiving, I have also updated a few things, enjoy!

Holidays for me often are not so much fun as usually I am far away from family, but this year for Thanksgiving I headed off to Cuba. Even going alone to Cuba it ended up being great as I’ve never been and had always wanted to go and see a true communist country in operation.

I booked myself at the Hotel National de Cuba in Havana (rated one of the world’s most famous hotels) and if you ever heading to Havana I really recommend staying at this hotel. It has so much history and is such a unique hotel it alone is worth the trip to Havana. If you are staying there ask for one of the ocean view tower rooms, as you will get 2 nice large windows with a view of the ocean and a view of the city. Out of the hundreds of hotels I’ve stayed at this is defiantly one of the top, not only for its history but the value as it was really affordable.

I only spent 4 days in Cuba but I managed to get all over Havana and even got a day trip to the beach in Varadero. It was such an interesting country as they really are unique as without capitalism and without the American influence it has really created a culture unlike anything I’ve seen before. While Cuba is poor it actually maintains a higher level of wealth then countries like China, Thailand or the Philippines as while those other countries all have much more wealth they also have much more visible poverty. Now I not saying that Cubans are rich or not poor, just saying that while they are poor they are not sleeping on the streets, using sheet metal as walls and visually malnourished.

The trip was short but it was just enough time to get a little bit burnt and long enough to forget about some of the issues back here in Guelph (where I was living when I wrote the post) and while I didn’t take my laptop with me I did stop off at an internet cafe for a quick efix.

Next week I’m heading off for to meet with some new corporate prospects and maybe even make a trip back to my hometown to visit with some old friends before I start back into the next big thing.