On the morning of January 8th, I woke up to my alarm sounding at 6:45am. Breakfast would be starting at 7:30 upstairs and I wanted to be up, dressed, and ready for the day before making my way upstairs for breakfast. Like most mornings, I layed in bed for a few moments contemplating the day before finally deciding to get up out of bed. Mornings in Cuba were different though because I could not wake up and endlessly scroll on social media so I was out of bed quicker than usual. After getting ready, Emma, Steph, and I made our way upstairs to the breakfast table. This morning I decided to try the new fruit breads that were out for us to choose from. I had scrambled eggs as well and scooped a few bananas onto my plate like I usually do. Everyone was saying “Happy Birthday!” to me at the table and a student from NYU who was staying at Casa Vera as well came over to tell me it was also her birthday. After breakfast, we grabbed our things from our room and made our way down stairs this time to meet the other students for today’s adventures. Before heading to the bus, we went into the downstairs common area to try to get onto the wifi to message our families.

In the groupchat with the families of Emma, Steph, and I, I was flooded with “happy birthday” messages from the parents. My parents began sending baby pictures of me to the other parents. After messaging home, we made our way to the front lawn where the other students were already waiting to get onto the bus for the day. When our professor arrived, we greeted him and our bus driver Carlos, and headed over to our host university, the Center for Investigations of Psychology and Sociology (CIPS). This morning’s lecture was actually on one of the topics that I had presented prior to our departure to Cuba – the Cuban poet and philosopher, José Martí. Although I had researched most of the information presented about Martí, I think it was really interesting to learn more about him from someone who is Cuban. Statues of Martí can be found all throughout the city of Havana in fact, there is a statue of his head outside of our host university. As he is someone very influential to Cubans, I am sure many people grow up learning about him and know more than Google could ever provide for someone doing research.

Following the lecture, we got back onto the bus and made our way into Old Havana. Here, we began a tour of the older and more historical part of Havana where the buildings have

been preserved for years. When we first arrived, there was a very cute dachshund in the garden area! There are many animals walking the streets of Cuba with their owners or who do not have homes. Although it is sad to see animals who are homeless, I was very happy to see that many people feed and interact with the animals. During the tour, there was a lady sitting on the sidewalk with what looked like ten cats! She was just sitting with them feeding them all! As we were walking, a man on the street began drawing my friend David and following him down the street in order to give him this drawing. Afterwards, a man came up to David to get a picture with him for some money. We all laughed it off because these people were specifically asking David for things and no one else. After the tour, we went for lunch at La Bahía.

At lunch, I sat with all of my friends: Emma, Mike, Navya, Steph, Christina, and David. Most of us ordered virgin piña coladas with our meals, including me because I wanted to try one. For an appetizer we had croquettes which were served at most restaurants we visited in Cuba and for my lunch I had the pork dumpling option. We sat and talked for about an hour, eating our meals and taste testing each other’s drinks. Mike had gotten a lemonade with mint so we needed to pass it around our group to try it since everyone else had ordered the piña colada. All of a sudden, the restaurant staff came over with a cake and began singing for my birthday! I was very surprised because I did not plan on celebrating my birthday until later in the day. The cake was a delicious strawberry cheesecake and they had placed a fire-cracker-like candle on top. After lunch and dessert, I decided to get up to use the restroom when I found the dog, Tina, who was owned by someone working in the restaurant. She was sitting on one of the benches so I had to take a few pictures of her because she looked very funny. After lunch, it was our free time!

The first thing on my bucket list for free time was to get another tattoo. When I studied abroad in France, I got a tattoo to commemorate my trip and I really wanted to do the same here. In France, there were storks pretty much everywhere we went as a symbol of the area we were in – almost every store we entered was selling magnets, keychains, sweatshirts, and stuffed animals

of storks. Therefore, I got a tattoo of a stork on my arm. During the first few days in Cuba, I was keeping an eye out for something that resembled our trip that I could get for a tattoo. Then, on January 6th, our second full-day in Cuba, I woke up and saw that a tiny gecko had snuck into our room during the night. I knew this was going to be the tattoo. He had to be. I walked into La Marca, a tattoo shop in Old Havana, with Emma, Steph, Christina, Lovia, and Navya, and showed the man at the counter the picture I got of the gecko on my wall.

Although Emma had wanted a tattoo for a while, she had never gotten one. As we were sitting in the lobby, she decided she was finally going to get one. She had been planning to get a tattoo of music notes behind her ear so the two of us walked up to the man at the counter asking if the back of her ear was large enough for a tattoo. They said yes and we began drawing out music notes in the lobby for them. I went back for my tattoo first and as I was leaving Emma came up for hers. While we were waiting for her tattoo to finish, the five of us still in the lobby heard the door begin to open. There was a window on the door, but we were unable to see anyone coming in. All of a sudden this tiny dog walks through the door and asks us for pets. We sat and pet him while we waited for Emma to finish her tattoo.

After getting our tattoos, we met with Mike and David outside and continued walking around Old Havana looking at the shops. We made our way to the Capitol building where we stopped to take some pictures of it up close before finding somewhere to go for dinner. We decided to stop at La Guarida, a restaurant with a rooftop bar in Old Havana. The restaurant itself was on the seventh floor of the building, with large winding stairs and then when we finally made it to the restaurant, we had to go up another flight to the rooftop. When we finally made it up there, the skyline was so pretty we decided to take pictures together with the sky in the background. We ordered some mocktails as well before we left and made our way back towards the residencia.

We made our way back down the winding stairs of La Guarida and went outside to find a taxi to take us over to the area where we were staying. When we got outside, there were a few taxis waiting to take people where they needed to be, and we asked how much it would cost to take us. Since there were eight of us, we needed to split into two taxis in order to fit everyone. My taxi was Mike, Emma, Navya, and I, and the others piled into the other taxi. Mike knew Spanish and asked our driver to take us to 15 and E (pronounced ay in Spanish), David did not know Spanish and asked his driver to take us to 15 and I (pronounced ee in Spanish). Our driver knew all of us were together so he just followed the other car even though that is not where we were supposed to be going so it worked out fine in the end.

We walked back to our residencia, Casa Vera, and grabbed more money before heading down the street to the restaurant we had gone to during the welcome dinner in Cuba. When we stopped at Casa Vera, the other students on the trip were there so we all made our way to El Idilio for dinner. The fifteen of us had to break up between two tables to fit, but we were able to enjoy a dinner out together anyway. I got a really good pizza which was very different from American pizza. The crust was much thinner which I enjoyed because I am not a fan of pizza crust. Our curfew was not until 2am so we decided to stay out and celebrate my birthday more. After dinner at El Idilio, Emma, Steph, Christina, Navya, Mike, David, and I went to H-Bar for more mocktails. At 1:30, we made our way back to the residencia for our 2am curfew and decided to stay up for a little bit to chat before going to bed.

Turning 20 in Cuba will forever be one of the most memorable days of my life and I have a permanent gecko on my arm to commemorate it 🙂