In 2008, I quit my corporate job, sold off everything I owned and moved overseas with my husband Drew. Since then we've traveled around the world, started our careers over as creative types and nurtured our love of sleeping in late. Oh and we had a baby. Cole, our almost 2 year old has been traveling since he was four months old and probably knows more Thai than me (not that he brags).
A Night at Fresa y Chocolate
On my last night out with in Cuba, I hung out with the boys: Brayan, Orlando, Roberto Carlos and The Mexican (Cesar). We were doing it up Cuban style, which means that the American buys a $3 bottle of Rum at the liquor store, one of the boys hides it in his pants, we order a couple of generic cokes and through some slight of hand, they become Cuba Libres. For about 5 dollars we drank all night. It felt like college all over again.
We went to a bar across the street from the Cuban Film Institute called Fresas y Chocolate. The bar is full of Cuban film memorabilia, and named after the award winning 1993 film. I’m told that the title comes from a scene where two men meet, and it’s obvious that one of them is gay when he orders strawberry ice cream instead of the decidedly more manly chocolate.
There was live music, a spry old man played the guitar and talked about his life. While we listened, Brayan pointed out someone sitting at a large table up front. “Hey look at that guy, he’s huge in Europe, he’s very famous.” Now, Brayan had been lying to me all week. It’s his sense of humor to tell me that there is a monument to Obama (a pile of dirt) or that Cubans ate fried condoms on pizza during the special period. I’m careful not to swallow everything he says, as he’s already tricked me a couple times (much to his delight).
Then the man with the wild blond hair that Brayan had pointed to, was greeted by the owner, handed a guitar and went on stage. The crowd was loving it. I later googled him to find out he was Raul Paz, a cuban artist who had played with Gloria Estaban and now had a record contract and was in fact, big in Europe (or at least France).
I thought one the boys, Orlando, was going to drop dead from excitement when he played a cover of “Only You”. I took a quick video with my small camera, and if you can see that arms to the left of me, that’s Orlando going crazy.
The best part? Seeing Orlando’s face, when I took this photo (Raul Paz on the left, Orlando on the right). One of the most memorable night of my travels so far…
