Preparing to Leave for Cuba

I'm somewhat frantically getting ready for my trip to Cuba as our plane will be touching down in the communist nation on Monday morning. As to what I expect - my mind is almost burry I'm so curious and confused.

For one thing, I don't know what to wear while I'm there, thus I don't even know what to pack. I'm not sure if I'll be amongst masses of impoverished citizens or if I'll be in some sort of gorgeous resort area. My guess at the moment is that I'll be seeing both. Though even my hunches seem suspect to me now.

I have my father to thank for this trip, as otherwise I wouldn't have been able to legally leave the US for Cuban soil. One way or another, my father, through a friend or a business contact of his, was invited to join this State Department approved "goodwill" trip, put together annually by a California lobbying firm with contacts to a Cuban church. 

Roughly seventy-five of us make-up the travel group. I say that having quickly counted the names on the PDF recently emailed to me: a collection of paragraph-long autobiographies that each of us were asked to submit. From that document I have an idea of the company in which I'll be traveling. Our ages range from twenty to mid-sixties, though most seem to be in their early forties. Most common occupations: lobbyist, attorney, corporate executive in governmental affairs/ communications, record executive, television executive, hollywood agent. Then there's a teacher, a chef, a personal trainer, a college student, and of course me - some guy who spent the last half-decade traveling to every state in the country working odd jobs so he could tell stories about it... and who most recently has been renovating a house while pondering the beginnings of a legitimate career.

So that's the roster more or less and we'll be in Cuba for one week. I'll have my own room at the Hotel Nacional de Cuba. I'll have internet access there, no cell phone.

I'll be bringing my camera, my laptop, some pens and notebooks... and probably just some clothes other than that - linen slacks, khakis, some button up shirts, shorts and a swim suit. 

Fool that I am, I haven't prepared myself for this linguistically. Years ago, when working in the kitchen of a Manhattan Italian restaurant with a crew of undocumented immigrants, my Spanish was passable. I should've brushed up in preparation for this trip. Perhaps I'll cram tonight.

That's about it. As a journal of my travels, I'll keep this blog updated as best I can with photos and posts (just for my own records). You can follow along if you want.