The cuban sandwiches that we've all tempted for ? Yeah, not the most cuban thing apparently. Being a vegetarian, I survived on bread and butter since the country does not import food and lacks the influx of lavish ingredients that we are used to elsewhere in the world due to globalization. Beans and rice or bread and butter, yup that's all I got. I wonder if the local people have ever eaten the food that I crave because it's so delicious or is it just my palette that has become so entitled to advancements. I wonder if they'll ever know that CocaCola came up with Vanilla flavor and that Ben & Jerry's mint chocolate cookie is the best ice cream in the world. I wonder if I would have ever sulked for not being able to find Cadbury flake in Los Angeles because it's a very European style of chocolate if I was habituated to the Cuban ways. 

My first visit to a communist country was eye opening. I visited Havana, Cuba in March 2018 and the city has all aspects to it - Havana Viah is as touristy as it gets (gave me the vibe of being in Prague?!), mid city is overlooking Malecom, the sideway overlooking the Pacific (much like Marine drive of south Bombay) and  Vedado is the modern neighborhood where locals reside - children making their way to primary schools with their mothers, men chilling at open bars and women completing the house chores such as drying clothes out in the balcony of their casas. Strangely enough, I found casas patch colored. Is it that the city that is so rich in its heritage somewhere lost its way to improvement ? It almost felt like casas were owned per family at some point in history and now, one house is divided among families almost making it "apartment" style. 

What is interesting is that the city lacks internet connection with wifi cards found for 1 cuban convertible for 1 hour that can be used only at the Malecom, parks or hotels in the city. My questions to students and professors at the University of Havana were but obvious - how do they write their research papers - find their literature review if there's no google ? I recall reading about Steven Hawking three days post the death, through a local newspaper written in Spanish that was used to wrap my sandwich in by a restaurant. How do people find out about current affairs ? Do they get agitated through the day thinking about receiving news only the next morning once the local newspaper is delivered to them early morning ? BUT you know what's funny? People interact more with each other in this city (I wonder why, hmm) and their strive for knowledge is not hindered by no access to internet - thanks to offline wikipedia. So, is it possible that the virtual world has almost made way into our personal lives whereby we hardly even indulge in getting to know the person sitting next to us in the shuttle because we are busy checking our home page on instagram ?

This city yet never fails to surprise me in the best possible way. Fabrica de Arte took my heart away and left me amazed. I truly believe it is the most globalized place in the world with an influx of people from Europe, Asia, America and more. It is an art studio that is a night club which opens only Thursday, Friday and Saturday at 8 pm. The strength of visual communication without language fascinates me. This warehouse in an estranged city of Havana in the communist world far, far away from globalization has managed to attract the capitalists to itself just by the power of art. People tend to drop their cultural, social and economic barriers in this magnificent setting and much rather start to appreciate the once strange qualities of one and other.

Right from listening to drunk doctors from New York rant at a night club to hanging out with the waiter who served me one afternoon at the American Bookstore and from watching an Italian fight with a French on wine quality to learning how to salsa, I got to say the Cuban experience left me awe struck.