Sat, 31 May 2003 06:51:02 -0700 (PDT)
Saturday update

Went out on thursday night, and of course the guy at the entrance says the cost is $5 per pair to get into the club, and then once we get inside, it is $5 per person. So I argued with the guys for a while, and we gave in (the club was pretty far from any other clubs). Then I stood behing the guy taking the money to make sure that everyone else paid the same as me. It appeard to be that they were paying the same, and so I let it be ... althouh it did appear that the people after us were waiting for change ... I am not sure if they then got some later in the night. Afther that, they tried to tell me that I hadn´t paid cover charge ... I got pretty pissed off, and it is amazing how fluently my spanish comes out when I am mad ... anyway, they backed down pretty quickly, and let me in (I really had paid). We were a group of 4 guys and 3 girls ... and as we entered, the concierge of the club sat the 2 cuban girls who were in line in front of us at our table. I was pretty convinced that it was some sort of scam to get us to buy their drinks or something, so I made sure that everyone at our table went up to the bar to order their drinks rather than from the waiter. I also told the waiter that we would not pay for any drinks for the cuban girls ... later on I was talking to them a little bit, and it turns out that girls here are not allowed to enter clubs without ¨escorts¨ ... I think the reason is that without this restriction, every club in Havana would be exactly like a brothel. I am sure that these two girls were ¨jineteras¨ (horse-riders). Hope they got to practice their jockeying skills, because paying $5 each to get in could be an expensive night for them if the couldn´t find a ride.

We appear to have entered the rainy season, as it has rained every day for the past week for between 2 and 6 hours, normally during the afternoon. However, yesterday it didn´t start raining until 6:00, which made for a nice day. When it rains here, it is literally a torrental down pour. The streets turn into rivers, and if you walk in the rain, you will be completely drenched in about 5 seconds. Most people just wait out the rain before moving on.

Yesterday I found a awesome swimming pool in the Hotel Nacional, and the weather was perfect durning the day. It costs $15 to get into, but with that $15 you get to order $15 worth of food and drink. It is actually a pretty reasonable deal, and I think that I am going to go there again today. Hopefully I´ll beat the rain, by going at about 11:00 this morning.

Last night, nothing much happened except that we just sat around on ¨the Malecon¨ which is the street along the sea (the street that a lot of the locals go to). Finally at 1:00 we ended up going to a really cheezy club that was playing crappy american music from the 50s,60s, and 70s. It was a complete time warp. Especially since the decor of the club was also right out of the 50s or 60s. I felt like I was in a small town bar in rural Manitoba .... they even did line dancing. At one point, I went to the bar to order 2 beers, and the guy told me it was $3 for both, and I knew for a fact that it should only be $2 ...so I told him, ¨No $2¨ ... he gave me a dirty look, and gave me the beers for $2. Needless to say, it was a reasonably sober and early night.