Havana-Day 1

There we were, standing at our gate, visas and passports in hand...ready to fly into Cuba---only to be turned away. We had planned to spend 5 days in Cuba, but lost an entire day with getting stuck in rainy New Jersey for 24 hours. Don't worry though, this story has a happy ending.  

The East Coast has been flooded with rain and storms over the last couple of months and we got caught in one. Our initial flight to New Jersey was delayed by several hours, but we still made it there in time to catch our connecting flight to Havana. Only, the airline had assumed that we wouldn't make it in time and had already removed our names off the flight passenger list. Tom was fuming and I just wanted to burst into tears as we stood there on time for our flight, but still had to watch it take off without us. And the nightmare wasn't over yet. We had to spend 2 hours on the phone with the airline and hours in lines at the airport before we finally got everything sorted out and were guaranteed a flight for the next day. In fact, I'm still dealing with the airline now, but let's not talk about that frustration. Instead, let's focus on the moment when we finally arrived in Cuba, so thankful to be in Havana.  

We didn't make it into Cuba until late afternoon. By the time we went through customs & immigration, changed currency, and checked into our AirBnB, it was already early evening, but we still had to go and explore quite a bit. Here's just a few photos from our first hours in Havana. 

We had no real plans for Day 1 in Havana since we were just arriving and getting settled. But we managed to walk and explore a bit between Habana Centro (Central Havana) and Habana Viejo (Old Havana). We had the best daiquiris to be found at the Floridita-made famous as Hemmingway's favorite haunt. We listened to live music with mojitos on a rooftop bar. We rode in a classic car. But mostly, we just got a glimpse of beauty of the city and the people that we get to enjoy for the next few days. Our first impression of Havana has been a good one, that I cannot wait to share more of soon. But for now, I'm going to go and enjoy another amazing day in this city. Happy Saturday!