In Transit
28th of May:
I arrived at the international airport of Habana around 1:30 in the morning, and was asked to pay 50 CUC instead of 40, as the airport is 25 km outside the city, I didn’t like this new concept, and refused to pay anymore than 45 CUC. Inside the airport the security is incredibly tight, and I felt good about going to sleep lying own on a bench, with my bag underneath. It took some time to fall asleep, and my sleep wasn’t comfortable. But my flight wasn’t till 11:20, so any way of passing time was a bonus, and I was nodding off anyway.
When I woke up again, it was 7:30, and I felt like watching a movie. So out my music/video player bought in La Paz was pulled, and the Bucket List watched. It is a wonderful movie, that I like most of the movies I watch would recommend, but this movie especially is worth watching, I consider it a small life confirming masterpiece with a good if unrealistic ending. I check in, and with absolutely no money left and an airport tax of 25 CUC to pay, I exchanged my 50 USD into CUC, which came out at 40 instead of the 46.3, that it should officially, but the USD dollar suffers from an extra fine in comparison with other currencies.
Whenever I go through the metal detector, I always make a small celebratory dance when I don’t beep, it always makes the security personnel smile, even laugh, and that makes me feel a lot better. This time they called me “Jackie Chan”, so I pulled off some extra wannabe kung fu moves, to more amusement.
I bought a sandwich and sat down to write in my diary, but fell in conversation with some Aussie’s not from Melbourne (I don’t believe it), but instead from Adelaide. But it didn’t take long before I had to board the flight, and had the 3 seats on my side to myself.
I arrived in Montego Bay airport (not Kingston, other end of the country) in Jamaica, it is a very nice and shiny airport, but the waiting was substantial (5 hours) so I bought a book called White Oleander, the selection was very small, it looked like the best and the main characters have Swedish names… Wasn’t a hard choice.
On the flight to Baltimore (BWI) I sat next to a friendly lady named Jacqueline, that I spoke with on most of the trip. Having something to do while waiting is always nice, and when nice conversation comes along… Even better.
I arrived in the US, and immigration went perfect, my luggage took quite a while, and then things just went to hell (“I would rather reign in hell, than serve in heaven” from White Oleander, although I’m pretty sure it is from somewhere else). As I had been to Cuba (wasn’t gonna start lying), they decided to toss my entire bag, and initially wanted to keep everything I had purchased in Cuba, my wooden toycar of a 1957 Chevy, my Fidel Castro hat and my wooden (empty) Cohiba box. But a supervisor came along, and told them that as I am not a US citizen, I can freely go to and from Cuba, and I can bring Cuban items with me, as long as they won’t be used in Cuba, and as all those items are coming with me to Denmark, there is no problem.
As I had been detained for quite some time while they searched my bag, I had missed the last bus to the metro station. A taxi driver told me that it runs till 2 in the night, and so he took me there for a staggering 40 dollars (28 miles or 45 km). Once I made it there, he drove off, and I discovered that the last train leaves at 23:30 on weekdays, the 2 in the night train is during the weekend. So I took a second taxi all the way to my hostel for 30 USD, where I checked in and was hit with an extra fine for checking during the night (WHAT?). Annoyed and exhausted I went to sleep, cursing the pathetic customs procedure.
This entry was posted on Thursday, May 29th, 2008 at 17:03. It is filed under Cuba, USA.
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