I really miss Tatiana, Andreas and Yolanda, as they were really good fun and it seems the scene has changed a bit now.

Sofie is nice, but she is a very pretty girl (her father is Greek) and she´s getting lots of attention from the Cuban guys. It´s fine to talk to them but she was also inviting everybody back to Los Siete Mares and I don´t really want the place to be swarmed by her suitors, if only for Erik and Onelio´s sake, who are risking a lot by organising all this for us.

Whereas I seem to attract the ones who want to get married to an etranjera, or the ones who genuinely just want to talk and get to know me, she seems to attract the hornier ones, who immediately start talking about the art of lovemaking. There was a kid (17 years old) who started telling us how he learnt how to make love from a 26 year old Spanish woman. Huh.

We walked with two guys along the Malecón (there´s always one handsome one, in this case Alexander, and one who can dance well and is very short...) and Alexander went missing when he saw a policeman approaching. Apparently they may get fined just for talking to us, as they may think they are jineteros (Cuban men and women doing -sexual- favours in return for money, a meal, an evening out etc.) and they would get fined. The dancer said this was to protect the tourists, but I think it is something else as well.

Anyway, at Los Siete Mares, it now seems to be swarming with Cubans trying to chat people up. Luckily, I seem to be escaping the worst of it, and I have never been happier to look ordinary in my entire life. Sofie told me she and a Canadian women had to pick up the tab (about 50$!) for all their ´friends´ but she still hasn´t learnt her lesson.

I did like one guy, who said the psst psst sound was disrespectful of women, and a sign of maleducacion as we are not dogs you could call. (No soy un perro, I have to remember that one)

Anyway, making noise is something the Cubans do well. When I got home, some kids were racing down the streets on a piece of wood with wheels under it, at breakneck speed as the street is very steep. They made a hell of a noise, the first time I heard it, I thought the world was going to end.

The same happened when Ivon´s husband was playing dominoes with his friends. They were rattling the stones with such ferocity and shouting over it, so that I thought they were having a huge argument, but it was all normal.
Ivon and daughter Heleña never seem to be having a quiet conversation, they are both shouting at the top of their lungs... I was even unlucky enough to having to listen to Ivon and her husband making love, as they are in the next room. Luckily they have been married a long time so it doesn´t happen so frequently anymore...

In the evening we met new arrival Sean (US, lives in Dublin) and Noémi (Switserland). Sean is taking it all very seriously, wanting to know about the economics and politics of the average Cuban. There are also two Sri Lankan guys who live in Toronto who seem to have ´tourist´ tattooed on their forehead (either that or ´rip me off´)

Erik put us in a taxi and just told the taxi driver where to go which I didn´t like considering how I arrived the first night. I told Erik about this by the way, and he just laughed: ´Oh, yes, they do that sometimes. ´ So now he tells me.
We went to La Casa Alta, which was full of Cuban yuppie kids watching a very bad impersonator do Michael Jackson, Celine Dijon and lots of Cuban stars (I imagine) It wasn´t really my thing and luckily Sean didn´t mind taking a taxi particular with me to go back.

He did continue to talk politics all the time, which I thought was perhaps not the best idea when your in an illegal taxi with a bunch of Cubans, not knowing where you are in the middle of the night in the Havana suburbs. I sincerely hope the driver didn´t understand English. But maybe I´m just being too sensitive.

I didn´t really like the Cuban yups, they spend 10$ at the door (10$! That´s so much money here!) to drink free beer the rest of the night. I prefer the poorer ones, who have a dream. Like Alexander´s friend, whose dad used to own a 1950ies car, but had to sell it. He would like to get one like that and do it up. Or Frank, who taught himself English because he hopes to go to England one day. I don´t know if either of their dreams will come true, or even if they will make them happier, but I wish them all the best.

Some of these stories really break your heart, and you realise that it is inherent in mankind to want to better themselves, to develop and express themselves, which is why communism in my opinion, even though it seems on the surface to be fairer and more equal, will never work.