A Night at Fresa y Chocolate
16. Feb, 2009 
5 Comments
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…
It sounds like you and Orlando had a lot of fun! Cuba Libres and live music sounds like an essential Cuban experience. Fresas Y Chocolate is one of my fave films, you must watch it when you get a chance. It gives a pretty realistic perspective of Cuba, so I’m told.
I’m curious, does anyone have any feedback on the inclusion of video? It was a little experiment, but I’m not sure if it works.
@Christine,
It looks great! I think it works because it’s a) short, and b) not necessary to get the meaning of the post. In other words, it’s not strictly a video post, but the video supports the message. And nice job with the Cuban style rum-and-coke.
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Yeah, I forgot to mention the video! It did work well with the post.
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This looks/sounds like a fun night indeed.
And I totally agree with Chris about the video.
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