A Cuban Christmas

On Thursday afternoon, we flew north from Cuba to Canada. Some pretty hefty turbulence made us take an elongated flight path out over the Atlantic rather than over the Eastern Seaboard of the USA, as I had come on my way south a week earlier. I spent much of the time sunk into my seat dozing and watching the clouds below us. The vertical panorama from the apex of the sky to the ocean below us was a wondrous rainbow of blues, pinks and yellows. Small freckles of clouds hung inches above the water, while vast thick sheets of higher altitude clouds hung just below us.

There’s very little to see other than that. Normally anyway. About one hour before we landed in Montréal, less than 300 metres below us and to our left, a WestJet Boeing 737 airliner shot past in directly the opposite direction. I’m guessing that’s a bit close, since I had could read the word ‘WestJet’ on the side of the aircraft’s fuselage. Perhaps you know the feeling, when you’re cruising in an airliner at 33,000ft, that you’re not travelling very fast? Well, if you ever see an aircraft flying past you at close quarters, you suddenly realise you’re going pretty feckin’ quick.

I was too spaced out to be that bothered. I talked to the cabin manager about it. She told me not to worry and we chatted about life in general. Perhaps she was right, or perhaps she was hurridly pressing a red button on her telephone as I returned to my seat…

My week in Cuba was a breath-catching experience, and perhaps the best thing to have done since my arrival in Canada. I must confess it was not problem free. I thought I could escape the loneliness of a Christmas on my own by going somewhere different. But of course there are always those quiet in-between moments when thoughts of things and people far away catch up with you, and conspire to attack your indepedent spirit. As I posted before I left, I was nervous about going on my own to a country where I did not speak the language and to rediscover the joys of solo-travel after six years. It was not easy. Cuba is not a country that welcomes the solo traveller, or the budget conscious.

During the day I toured the city (beautiful) and the museums (astonishing, especially the Cuban collection of the Museo Nacional de Belles Artes) and lounged with my books in sunny parks and town squares. It was a dreamy way to float around an incredibly beautiful place. A walk along one block in any direction from the intensively restored and tourist-centric old town returns you to the Havana we’ve all seen in film and television: crumbling buildings, no running water in places, old cars, animals and children playing in the streets… and yet Cuba has a literacy rate that’s higher than the United Kingdom. You cannot dismiss the country as being of the third world.

At night-time, however, my demons returned, and with little Spanish it was tough finding places to experience the Cuban culture that everyone raves about. The music was everywhere, but it would have been nice to hear it somewhere other than in a tourist hotel bar or in an old town café. Travelling away from the bright lights and the beaten track for so long has spoilt me; I seem to expect to be able to go where I want in any country and find the ‘real’ thing. It’s not impossible in Havana, but without the language to ask successfully (and I did try) and the money for the cab fares to the far flung but highly recommended clubs, it was difficult for me. And on top of all this, it seems I chose the one destination that would suit my significant other down to the ground… and she of course wasn’t there to see it with me.

I will definitely go back… partly because there is still so much more to be seen, but mainly because I don’t think I did myself justice in this incredible country.

*j*

Pre-trip nerves…

It’s Wednesday night in Montréal. This time tomorrow, I will be in Cuba. I will have travelled further south than I have ever been before, and crossed the Tropic of Cancer for the first time. I’ll be staying near the middle of the city of Havana in a small casa (a modest guesthouse). And to be honest, I am, at this very moment, very nervous… my head is clear and logical as I pack clothes, toileteries, tickets, money, passport etc. But my stomach and my heart are churning.

For the first time since I was seventeen, I am going somewhere far away all on my own. Like my baptismal trip to Slovenia six years ago, I don’t speak the language, I’ve never been there before, and I won’t know anyone when I get there. I remember these sensations of nervousness and almost physical queasiness from that trip. I can’t explain it; I am normally a very balanced and brave traveller, but suddenly it seems I am nervous again about travelling on my own and travelling into a soft version of the unknown. Montréal has been tough, but it the difficulties I have encountered here have been on a familiar territory: i.e. a city that I have visited before and with languages I speak. Tomorrow I go somewhere very new, where all the co-ordinates have shifted, and all the sounds will be different.

As I left work today, my French speaking colleagues all wished me bon vacances! Somehow, this doesn’t feel like it will be holiday, and thank god because I think I’ve realised that I prefer to make trips than take holidays. And after a good trip, I’ll probably need a holiday :)

*j*

Where the wild things are…

Had a nice IM chat with a distant friend in her adopted city of Glasgow this weekend. She told me about work, life and music… which was good for me, because I found out that Northern Ireland’s dirtiest musical talent V/Formation have some sessions tracks available for streaming from the BBC NI Across The Line website.

So here they are. Go get some, and be ready for the single available in shops and on iTunes in the new year:

• White Keys Black Tracks
• Where The Wild Things Are
• Open The Oceans

*j*

Valeur nutritive…

Seeing as I’ve now worked for this group of supermarkets for almost a month, today I felt it was about time I went and actually had a look round one of the stores. I am becoming particularly intimate with the own brand inventories but know the reams of products only by codes, numbers and quanities…

Ville d’Anjou (where I work) is going to be one of those places that will suffer very badly when the petrol runs out. It’s a typical indefinite suburb of Montréal, where long boulevards and vast car parks abound, and it’s impossible to navigate in winter without a car. Very frequent and reliable bus routes do serve these parts of town and one takes me to my door every morning, but I know from experience that Montréal is an exception in this respect. There’s a big discount store just down Jean-Talon from my office, so I thought I’d go and have a shifty.

It was certainly quite strange to walk in and be confronted immediately by stacks of -40C windshield fluid; it was just this morning that I prepared some documents for the supplier of this own brand product (one of the single biggest selling items in SuperC at this time of year…). The store was actually a surprise: I hadn’t suspected it to be so modern, clean and airy. I don’t know exactly why that was a surprise… I guess it’s because my only experience of Canadian supermarkets so far hasn’t been that great.

Big chunky fixtures and fittings in bright colours shouted no-nonsense-shopping and big banners on the walls shouted ‘Super Prix! Tous les jours!’. I meandered aimlessly through the aisles, comparing prices and imagining I was pushing a trolley with two screaming sprogs… 1kg bulk cans of fruit salad… trays of own brand cola… 10kg sacks of Canadian potatoes… family sized packs of diapers…

No need for any of that just yet… So I bought a back òf ‘Viva Trail Mix Nuts’ and scuttled to the exit. As I searched through my change for a quarter a couple of copper coins dropped onto the moving conveyor, and got eaten by the check-out. The cashier shrugged and said something pithy and appropriate in a thick accent.

*j*

Ugly cars made beautiful by heavy snow

Chevrolet Aveo, rue Gilford.

Honda Element, ave. Christoph-Colomb.

Er, maybe a Hyundai? … Parc Sir Wilfred Laurier

Your guess is as good as mine, ave. Christoph-Colomb.

Some big fat old Pontiac, rue de Mentana

Toyota Corolla, rue Gilford. Hey… wait a minute… so that’s where she’s been going late at night…