I had been looking forward to visiting Havana for a long time, and on Thursday – Shan’s birthday – we took our day trip into Cuba. It was a guided tour, which I wouldn’t normally enjoy – but except for the times when my head hurt and I wished the talking man would not talk quite so much, I was really glad for the information. I didn’t know anything about the city, after all, and I wouldn’t have learned anything beyond “hey, pretty buildings” if not for the guide. Still, when I go back, I’m going to pull a Darren and arrange an escape from the group so I can spend a night or two in the city on my own, because Havana. Is. Amazing.

I loved the city – there’s so much history there! Vancouver is just an embryo compared to Havana. There’s even a section called “Old Havana”, so you know it’s really, really old. Wikipedia says it was founded in 1519, so the city is almost 500 years old. That’s old! 125? Not old! Even New Havana is older than Vancouver, and therefore not filled with hideous but useful towers and skyscrapers. I am not a fan of Vancouver’s “everything is new and shiny” style of architecture; it’s one of the reasons I would live in Seattle if I could – so it was completely awesome to wander the streets and alleys of Old Havana and marvel at the gorgeous history of it all.

Unfortunately, Ed and Josh didn’t make the trip into town with us: Ed was feeling really sick and didn’t think he could make it through the bus ride. I was (really really) disappointed, but I didn’t want to let it sour my fun because I had been looking forward to it for so long. I left him to his own devices at the resort, and we were off: a visit to the rum museum, a walking tour through Old Havana, lunch, a bus tour of New Havana, a tour of a cigar factory, and a trip to a market so we could spread our capitalist wealth around a little. I like all of those things, so you can guess how excited I was to be off on a bona fide Adventure with a bold neon 96pt capital A.

It might be because I’m full of tacos or because I want to keep some of the trip inside my head, but I don’t really have the words to go through the 900+ pictures I took. So, you should just look at some of them instead. They are pretty. There are more Cuban pictures up on my Flickrs, but these are of the city that is amazing and you should go there if you can. In fact, you should come with me. I’m going around the same time next year. Start saving!