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https://www.mymapblog.com//rss/sachti The lasts posts from user sachti en-us So thursday somehow we came up with the idea that it would be awsome to go out to a club where all the rich kids from cuba are going to. That should turn out to be a bad decision. First of all we had to pay 5CUC entrance, which usually gives you two drinks with it, but not at this place, and after we paid that, we found out that drinks where incredibly expensive.
It was very dark in there and dirty (and with that I mean disgustingly dirty) and they even only played american music, while on the other hand no one was dancing. That wasn't just stranged, but seemed wrong in my mind, so we just started dancing on thlittle dancefloor anyways. I would have guessed, that eventualy some guys would come up to us to dance with the girls, but also they did start dancing after a while, no guy asked a girl to dance, that they didn't know before. Partly reason seemed to be that most of the girl where hookers (for real!), wearing there "I-can-bearly-cover-my-ass-dresses" or there "you-can-see-my-but-crack-jeans".
So not to late we decided to leave the club, only problem: someone ordered drinks at our table that we didn't drink and therefore didn't want to pay. I actually started discussing with the security guy and didn't even mind him throwing around words like "policia", but my american friends got a little scared and decided to pay the bill and storm off.
Friday, sadly, was my last day at school. Osvaldo, my spanish teacher finished off with a hymn praising my spanish skills and gladly recived his present off spanish books and a bottle of good old havanna rum. And of course, I had to say goodbye to Yohan, my dance teacher. He even gave me a goodbye present. very sweet. I even filmed my last dance, which you can see under: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzUBapm5LNM
Friday night I got invited to the theater by Yohan. He had his opening night for a show and I went to see him dance. and I have to say, I was amaced by how much i understood.
I even met up with a friend from germany, who happened to be in Havana at the same time, to join me for the show.
But the realy adventures part of that day was still waiting on me. I came back to my Hotel around midnight, asking for my room keys. "They are not here." was all they told me. Excuse me what? Where are they. The receptionist didn't realy seem to care, so it was up to me to find out what happened to my room. I opened the unlocked door slowly....and there was a man lying in my bed!!!! It actualy took my a couple seconds to realize, that this man was my father. Someone from there group couldn't get a hotel room for the night, so my parents offered the girl to stay with us. Since I was out and my parents didn't know when I was going to come back, my mom decided to share her room with the other woman and send my father off to mine. Well good to know, that they give out keys to people with the same last name in cuba!
After 3 hours of sleep, I was told to raise and shine by my alarm clock in order to catch my flight to Holgín. This was the part of the trip, that I will share with my parents and probably some bumpy roads.
So today we hit the road with our rental car, and by hitting I mean hitting. Most of the roads are bad and filled with wholes, but there are other ones that are even worse and make you decide whether you want to slice the bottom of your car open, or slide into a ditch. Well, at least some adventure :)
]]> http://www.mymapblog.com/sachti/14_03_09/meeting_up_with_Peter/ http://www.mymapblog.com/sachti/14_03_09/meeting_up_with_Peter/ http://www.mymapblog.com/sachti/12_03_09/trying_to_be_cuban/ http://www.mymapblog.com/sachti/12_03_09/trying_to_be_cuban/ Today I woke up half past nine, like always....so I thought. When I came up to the breakfast roomm everything was cleared away. What? No breakfast today? But that is the only reliable food source I have! The waiter than kindly explained me, that last night the time was changed in Cuba, so it wasn't 10am, but 11am, which ment: end of breakfast time. Shit! Good thing, that it was weekend and I actualy had time to go out and eat instead.
I even found a realy good location with fresh Guayaba juice, which made it up for the missed breakfast. Guayaba (Guave in german) is one of the typical fruits here. I was actualy hoping for Platanos (Kochbananen), but since they had so many Hurricans over here last year, almost all of the banana trees are gone :(]]> http://www.mymapblog.com/sachti/08_03_09/looking_for_Cristobal_Colon/ http://www.mymapblog.com/sachti/08_03_09/looking_for_Cristobal_Colon/ On the other hand I'm ok with not seeing too many tourists. You wouldn't belive how many toursits drag themselves through Havanas streets every day. And they are loud, unfriendly and belive that everyone speaks their language. Most of them are staying in some all.inclusive ressorts and only get one day out, into the "real cuba" anyways.
Today we did an awsome excersive during class. All the girls, listen up! In order to learn to move your hips and shoulders the right way, our teachers simply attached our hands to straticig import point on the bodies, so we could "feel" the rythm. Well, you certainly feel something, but I don't think I learned that much ;).]]> http://www.mymapblog.com/sachti/04_03_09/there_are_tourists_everywhere/ http://www.mymapblog.com/sachti/04_03_09/there_are_tourists_everywhere/ But Yohan, my dance instructore (he is a second Rico...almost) took it easy, ever after I accidently hit him. Sorry for that.
I made a video of me dancing, on my last day. Here it is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzUBapm5LNM
Here some things that I recognized so far: A lot of the woman are far away from being skinny (they are actualy OBs), while most man are slim and fit. Very strange to see in my mind. They even guess a womans age by her body size. But they don't seem to care, and even ware cloth as tide as it will wrape itself around their bodies.
On other thing is, that a lot of the times you ask for something off the menue at a restaurante, and they will let you know that they don't have it. That the person sitting next to you has the wished for food does not seem to be matter of concern. But since food is tide, you will have to pick something from the mostly 3 options and be happy with it. Your main concern should be to not starve, anyways.]]> http://www.mymapblog.com/sachti/03_03_09/Salsa!!/ http://www.mymapblog.com/sachti/03_03_09/Salsa!!/ Today would finaly be my first day of clase. I have private lessons, 4 hours every day. First I was scared that it might be too much, but I get along with my teacher realy well, and basicaly we talk about everything I want too. So it's more like having a 4h conversation, with getting corrections on my spanish. And by the way, in cuba, they speak a kind of andalusian accent, so I had no trouble being understood this time.
Cutting my hair short also paid off several times so far. My hairdryer isn't working here anyways, which I don't mind now, and the humid climate can knock itself out as far as I'm concerned. Even the windy drive in a car won't bother me now :). But the best part is, that a lot of the girls from southamerica have short hair, so now I'm mostly being mistaken for a south american chick.]]> http://www.mymapblog.com/sachti/02_03_09/First_Day_in_school/ http://www.mymapblog.com/sachti/02_03_09/First_Day_in_school/ Yesterday I was picked up by Josè at the airport. He is a friend of a friend of my mothers cousin.....or something like that. I was just glad that I didn't have to deal with finding a cheap taxi after the flight. Or so I thought.....cause cheap he was not! Normaly the taxidrive would have been max 20$, but he wanted 25$! Well, I only had 20Bills and he didn't have change. Sorry, guess he will need to be happy with 20$. I did promise him to give him the rest the next time I'm going to see him, which actually never happened.
After he droped me off at my hotel, I went to see if I can find Peters Hotel. Peter is a friend from the United States, who happened to be on an exchange Visa in Havanna during spring. Well, the problem was, that I knew which street it would be at (the Malecón, for ppl who know Havanna), but that I didn't bother to check the map for it's exact position. Since I was on the one end of it, I wouldn't run the risk of missing it, so I just started walking. After 45min I did decide to check and found out that it would take me at least 15 more minutes, but since I already started, I wasn't going to go back now. Also the temptation was there, since all the boys of cuba seemed to be sitting at the bay on that street on that day, and let me tell you, there are very persitent in letting you know, that they might be interested in you. It was actually that bad, that I decided to take a taxi on the way back. Even the taxi driver was coming on to me, which ended me giving him way to much money, just so I could get out of the taxi. Well, I'll be smarter next time.
Besides that, life in Havanna is like living in a movie from the 60's. You can see those Chevroletts everywhere! I knew that, but seeing it is still overwhelming. Even the houses look old, since there hasn't been any constructions (except some houses in Havanna vieja) made since Fidel came. You can see wholes in all the walls, some houses are half collapsed, others look like the will any minute. Most of them lack color and numbers, and in 80of the cases, you can't tell if people still live in there or not. Also I found out, that in almost all the buildings there are people living. My neighbor here even has his chickens and a rooster (damn this rooster at 5am!) on his roof.
Today I'll going to see what my parents are doing, since they will be in Havanna for this day. They called me last night around midnight, but I wasn't realy able to understand what they wanted since I was jet-lacked.]]> http://www.mymapblog.com/sachti/01_03_09/first_day/ http://www.mymapblog.com/sachti/01_03_09/first_day/ Getting to the Airport in Frankfurt on the other side was stress! First my parents started a discussion about the allowed weight your suitcase can have (not like I travel regulary...), and I actually had to go online and show them that you could bring more then 1 suitecase and 20kg, and after that they denied me driving the car. In case I crash the car on the way to the airport. Well, good thing my dad was driving, when he got flashed for driving too fast ;).
I, on my behalf, decided that it was time to relax. I'm on vacation for all it's worth. So I opend my bottle of campagne and cheered to myself.....let the adventure begin! :)]]> http://www.mymapblog.com/sachti/28_02_09/leaving_for_cuba/ http://www.mymapblog.com/sachti/28_02_09/leaving_for_cuba/ http://www.mymapblog.com/sachti/30_01_09/planning/ http://www.mymapblog.com/sachti/30_01_09/planning/ The plan is to stay 2 weeks in Havanna for language school and some salsa dancing lessons and then spend a good week traveling the east part of the island with my parents. For that we will rent a car and then follow my moms schedule on where to be when at what time to ensure that we saw everything! Well, as long as I get my Mojitos i guess I'll be fine. And I get to practice my spanish again :D. Wondering how good that will work out with the cuban dialect.
so if you have any more tips for cuba, I'm happy to hear them :)]]> http://www.mymapblog.com/sachti/24_01_09/next_month_is_traveling_time/ http://www.mymapblog.com/sachti/24_01_09/next_month_is_traveling_time/ And it´s not just people clearly saying who they want to vote for, but it´s actual behavior that I would definitly put into the "racism" category. So here is what happened. I was at a local grocery store, waiting in line for my turn. Charlie was with me, and I must have been talking to Charlie, cause all of a sudden the woman in front of me turns around saying: "What is it? French?" I was in total by the not so friendly approchouldn´t help myelf but responed with "What?" So she asks again: "Then language you are speaking!". By then I knid of knew what she was getting at, but didn´t want to give it to her that easy since the not so friendly approach, so I replied:"It´s english." "Just english?" "Well I also speak german." Now she points at Charlie saying: "So does he speak german too?" Now I kind of proud turned to Charlie and said: "No, he speaks spanish!". You could see how she lost all of the little frinedlyness that she might have had in her face if you would have just looked for it, and she says: "Well that´s a wast! I would rather speak my poor 2nd grade frensh than a perfect spanish!" Ok, that was the point where I lost it and just turned around refusing to speak with that person. I wish I would have had the guts to say more....like: "Well, if you want to continue shopping at that store, you better apprechiate the work of the Mexican people over here." or at least tell her to shut up. but where would that have gotten me? Well if you have any ideas on responses for the next time (I´m sure this won´t be the last time I heare something like that), then let me know.]]> http://www.mymapblog.com/sachti/20_09_08/America%2C_the_land_of_the_free~que/ http://www.mymapblog.com/sachti/20_09_08/America%2C_the_land_of_the_free~que/
Have you ever seen a 16 year old driven kid, talking about leadership wanting to change the world? Well I can tell you, it´s pretty amazing. I have seen students wanting to make a difference, but also I have experienced how hard it is to actually find students who want to make that change. Who are willing to spend their free time at the weekend in a conference room rather than partying, and experiencing that, I would have never thought that there are so many kids out there that can make just that same impact even at that age. so ride on guys, you are doing a great job!

If you want to get more informations on the topic, check out the web page: www.yesprograms.org]]> http://www.mymapblog.com/sachti/17_03_08/YES____the_future_global_leaders/ http://www.mymapblog.com/sachti/17_03_08/YES____the_future_global_leaders/
So what have I done in the last 2 days? Yesterday we went to Central Station. It realy looks like in the movies! And there is this spot where you can talk into on wall and the person on the other side of the call can hear you. Got somthing to do with the way the roof was build, but it´s super cool and fun for the kids.

We also went to the museum of nature and sience...that is where they made "Night at the museum". It´s so freaky, but you seem to know the city, cause you have seen most of the places in some movie...so you basicly walk around recognizing places.

At night we went to a Broadway Musical. I always wanted to do that! It was "Marry Poppins", maybe some of you have heard of it....it´s about a Nanny that can do magic and uses it to show two kids in London that anything can happen, if you just let it. It was realy cool. The difference between a Broadway Musical and the ones if seen in other cities is basicly that the special effects are so cool that it almost seems realistic. It was realy worth the money, so if you ever come to New York, go and see a Broadway show.

Oh, and we also went on top of the Rockefeller Center. The Rock actualy has an impressive story, being build during the depretion, helping thousands of people from going bankrupt. And you could see all Manhatten from the top. It was amazing seeing all those skyscrapers.

Today I then took the day to go and explore the city on my own. Before I always thought that I couldn´t live in New York. I mean I´m not a big city person anyways, but New York is so crowded and has so many freaks on it´s streets, it´s realy scarry sometimes. But today I walked from Upper Eastside all the way down to the financial district to see Ground Zero. And between those two parts, when the houses are normaly max 5 stries high, it´s realy nice. I could imagine living there. So check out the photoalbum, cause I made a lot of pictures on the way.

Being back on Broadway, at times square, I got verbaly raped. There was this guy who tried to get my intention saying all those lame pick up lines and I didn´t realy react to that. Well, wasn´t what he whished for I guess, cause I started calling me names and giving me professions, where I would need a way lower skirt in order to do that. But I guess I´ll have to say after that I now was realy in New York City.]]> http://www.mymapblog.com/sachti/27_02_08/New_York_Day_2_and_3/ http://www.mymapblog.com/sachti/27_02_08/New_York_Day_2_and_3/
Unser Hotel ist übrigens umgeben von min 6 anderen Hochhäusern, so das der Ausblick quasi ins das Wohnzimmer oder das Büro der Nachbarn geht. Erinnert mich irgendwie an "Friends" ;). ]]> http://www.mymapblog.com/sachti/26_02_08/New_York_Tag_1/ http://www.mymapblog.com/sachti/26_02_08/New_York_Tag_1/