Spanish class today was short, because we went to Pedro´s friend to listen to her cd collection and we could (of course) buy them if we wanted.

I´m not a big fan of copying cd´s, as it´s not good for the musicians, but in Cuba, this is common practise and if you only buy the cd´s in the hotels, you miss out on the best and most recent stuff.

It was hard to choose only a few, but I managed to whittle it down to six (yes, I know, that´s still a lot... no idea how I´m going to carry them around...) She lives in Playa, not a beach, but an area of Havana, in a big appartment block with a great view over the city. Pedro was staying there, so we had to get our own taxi back. Bernhard does not seem to realise the risk Cubans run by taking us with them, if they get caught with us, they have to pay a huge fine and may lose their license, but he is not very sensitive to the whole situation here.

Salsa was good, Yoyi said I was doing well so I was quite pleased. When I got there there was a police car outside and they all got very jumpy, turning off the music and hiding behind the doors.

In the evening I had to go to the Habana Libre again as Etecsa was having server problems of some sort again. I had dinner, pollo, mais, arroz y pepinos which is chicken, sweetcorn, rice and cucumbers and listened to a few cd´s. I haven´t done that much yet since I´ve got here, and the only time I read my book was at the beach...

At Los Siete Mares, I met up with loads of people. Frank, one of the two Francisco´s was there as well and a new Belgian girl called Sofie who just arrived and was a little bit freaked out, which is funny as everybody seems to go through the sames steps, 1 being freaked out, 2 slowly getting used to it, 3 loving it, 4 leaving it.

We took off in three taxis to the Cabaret Nacional, near the Capitolio. There was a show with a live band and scantily clad black ladies shaking their bottoms, plus one latino guy who had more makeup on than the girls and looked distinctly bored. It was very camp, with bad fitting costumes and cheesy choreography, but very entertaining.

Afterwards, we built ourselves a party, with a few Cubans shaking alongside us and with us, trying to get us cold northerners to relax those muscles. At about 1.30 I was absolutely knackered and Owen and I took a taxi back. Owen is only 18 years old, but he´s got a really nice trip lined up, including Cuba, Japan and Israel. Most people I met are about 30 though.

When I got home, Ivon had put the lock on the door as she thought I was asleep. I think I´ll need to tell her when I go out and this is her way of showing me...