Tuesday 20 March - Wednesday 21 March - Cuba to UK
Kick heels in lobby until picked up by coach and taken to airport. Luggage exceeds weight allowance (got rid of paper and pads but packed too many books) by a couple of kilos and so fully expect to have to pay extra but the guy saw how small our carry-on bags were and just waved us through.
I was, I have to admit, a little bit worried about getting the laptop out of the country. I wondered if they were going to make me pay 10% of its value or something but no, they just made sure it was the same one I arrived with and I was on my way.
Departure lounge and getting rid of last of our pasos on rum and cokes. Heart sank when I saw the bar-man using a measure to put the rum in the glass, then lifted again as he topped the glass up with rum anyway. Still in Cuba.
But not for long. We were just about the last to check in because of some sort of queue magic, but had seats right at the very back of the ‘plane. This is good because aeroplanes rarely reverse into mountains. Ate and drank all the way home, watching movies and reading while the rest of the ‘plane slept. You can keep bulkhead seats, we were as far from the ‘town square’ as it was possible to be - that’s okay by me.
Back to London and it’s snowing!
When I went to Cuba I had to make a cultural adjustment. The lack of advertising, of anything distracting, is like a sorbet. You quickly realise how little you miss it.
I had to make an even bigger cultural adjustment on my return. In the UK, everything is demanding your attention and hardly any of it is important. And the litter - how can we have so much that we throw it away, especially those free-sheets that are given away at London train stations and just seem to end up in the gutter. It was overwhelming, I’d lost the ability to tune out all this crap.
Now I’m not sure I want to tune it out - I want to be aware of it. You stop noticing things and before you know it, you’ve lost a little bit of liberty, liberty to think for yourself. No wonder the establishment hate revolutionaries so much.
I was, I have to admit, a little bit worried about getting the laptop out of the country. I wondered if they were going to make me pay 10% of its value or something but no, they just made sure it was the same one I arrived with and I was on my way.
Departure lounge and getting rid of last of our pasos on rum and cokes. Heart sank when I saw the bar-man using a measure to put the rum in the glass, then lifted again as he topped the glass up with rum anyway. Still in Cuba.
But not for long. We were just about the last to check in because of some sort of queue magic, but had seats right at the very back of the ‘plane. This is good because aeroplanes rarely reverse into mountains. Ate and drank all the way home, watching movies and reading while the rest of the ‘plane slept. You can keep bulkhead seats, we were as far from the ‘town square’ as it was possible to be - that’s okay by me.
Back to London and it’s snowing!
When I went to Cuba I had to make a cultural adjustment. The lack of advertising, of anything distracting, is like a sorbet. You quickly realise how little you miss it.
I had to make an even bigger cultural adjustment on my return. In the UK, everything is demanding your attention and hardly any of it is important. And the litter - how can we have so much that we throw it away, especially those free-sheets that are given away at London train stations and just seem to end up in the gutter. It was overwhelming, I’d lost the ability to tune out all this crap.
Now I’m not sure I want to tune it out - I want to be aware of it. You stop noticing things and before you know it, you’ve lost a little bit of liberty, liberty to think for yourself. No wonder the establishment hate revolutionaries so much.
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