Well, to sum up Cuba as well - it was ok. Surely not great! Certainly not at all as "romantic" as I expected it to be and rather dissapointing. I'm quite sure that our experiences didn't really help with getting into the Cuba-mood...but the Cubans themselves didn't help either! The friendly Cubans that you know from pictures and documentaries? Where did they hide???
"It is difficult and you have to understand the context..."
Since the state owns all the shops and restaurants there's no competition between them, which causes that Cuba lacks of customer service. In restaurants for example you usually won't see a smile on the waiter's face. And if you're really unlucky he will give you the menu without even looking at you!!! In shops people will try to screw their customers, by either giving back wrong change or just making up prices to keep the money. (The minimal payment is 9 $)Example: we went to buy a bottle of water and eventhough the price tag said 1 $, the saleswoman wanted 2 $ for it!!! She acted all weird when we asked her why she was charging us that much and told us that they had "an agreement with the company of their espresso machine"...such a "good" reason, which made us leave without buying it...
In another shop a bottle of water that was tagged 0,70 $...we wanted to buy two, and I paid with a 3 $ bill (yeah, they have that!), expecting to get 1,60 $ change. Instead the woman put the bottles into a plastic bag, pretended to write something down, looked around and obviously waited for us to leave. When I asked her for the change, she was all weird too and asked her co-worker "innocently": "Oh, did we already lower the prices for the water?" and he replied: "yes!" Then she apologized for it, but it was such a ridiculously obvious attempt to cheat us!!!
It is such a pity that it turned out all that bad. We even got robbed another time in one of the houses we stayed in, so even worse. Well, luckily I have a friend who's studying in a city close to Habana, because without her? I don't know, what we would've done!!!
Still I think in the end we made the best out of our situation. Went to the beach to enjoy the Caribbean Sea!!!
If a few weeks ago, I wrote I didn't like Costa Rica for several reasons, I have to withdraw my opinion!!! I really enjoyed travelling through all the countries, but I realized that I couldn't live there for a longer period. In contrary Costa Rica? There seem to be a lot of nice places that I haven't been to yet. Furthermore it's the only place I could imagine living for a longer period. So I was really, really happy to be back here. To see my friends and to know everything. It felt homy!!!But everything has an end and friday the 14th I was supposed to leave for Germany...I had everything packed, said most of my goodbyes (not to everyone I would have liked to, since it IS just difficult, to meet everyone, if you only have a few days...) and even was at the check-in counter. But Martinair didn't let me board, because, since my passport got stolen in Cuba, I only have a temporary one right now and the USA wouldn't let me in without visa. Well they would, but Martinair would have to pay a huge fine, which they are not willing to do...
Anyways, a US visa costs about 150 $ (!!!) and the flight change another 340 $ (!!!), so I decided to buy another flight since due to the easter holidays Martinair is booked out till the 31st anyway...
The sooner i get to Germany, the sooner i can start working off my debts...
So I'll fly back with Air Caraibes next wednesday, but can't find reliable information about the luggage restriction. Going through the US I could take 46 kg (only good thing about it!!!) with Martinair...and now it will be only 25 kg according to their homepage and 20 kg according to the internet travel agency I booked the flight with...well I have 42 kg...so I will have to leave "some" things :-(Luckily I have very good friends here too...so i'm living again with Karo, the girl with whom I've been staying after I moved out.
