CUBA

Why Cuba? Well, my ancestors are from this little Caribbean island. The culture was calling me within my veins... as well as the scent of cuban cigars and the taste of the smooth Havana Club Rum... I spontaneously bought my ticket after a few too many glasses of wine in hopes of starting my year abroad as soon as possible. Little did I know, the week before I bought my ticket, our good little friend Donald Trump decided to stop tourist travel to Cuba. So this left me standing on a bit of thin ice. The next month I was franticly googling and calling the treasury department in hopes of finding out what the hell is the current situation with traveling to Cuba! I was just about to ask for my plane ticket reimbursement. But after a friendly call from a government official, I found out I could possibly travel with a "family" statute. This not only eased my nerves but sparked the curious cat within me to find out who my actual Cuban roots are? After reaching out to my dad, who is very involved with our family ancestry, I got in contact with a distant cousin of mine in Florida who knew a very very distant cousin of mine who lived in Cuba. This is how I met Eduardo. Emails were written, mostly spanglish, and were exchanged for two months trying to figure out the logistics of me traveling and staying with Eduardo in Havana. Finally plans started to fall into place. Thats when Irma hit. The store left pretty much everyone in the Caribbean out of contact for a week, and it just happened to be the week before I left for Cuba... I sent multiple emails in hope that Eduardo would somehow get them to double check he was going to pick me up at the airport. Finally after the clouds cleared, I got in touch and everything was in place. Now all I had to do was pack.