Happy birthday

There is a certain habit in cuba in celebrating a girl’s 15th birthday.

The girl gets special clothing, is dressed up and gets a perfect makeup. Then they go to a photographer to take beautiful photographs.

According to our guide, some girls are dressed like a bride, other wear cocktail dresses and I also noticed photographs showing a girl dressed like a female version of an old-fashioned, spanish caballero. The photographs are usually taken in a park or in the streets and not in a studio.

Two weeks later,

Having a little chat

These two figurines are sitting in front of the former commodity exchange of Havana, not far from the harbour. The building in the back in the first photo already belongs to the harbour. Nowadays a commodity exchange isn’t necessary anymore, because Cuba’s economy is centrally planed and controlled by the socialistic government.

Take care
and while waiting for my next post on cuba you could have a loon on my past posts.

Reusing old stuff

Every now and then you find some stuff in you cupboard, closet, cellar or attic that is unusable anymore, useless or simply needless. You can store it somewhere else to keep it or you can throw it away. But there is another option: you can give it a new meaning and recycle it. i.e. old clothing can be collected and donated to an aid organization to help people after a catastrophe, old furnitures can also be donated to aid organizations for helping poor people and old metals can be remelted for creating new products.

On Cuba I found a very creative idea for reusing old cannons and cannonballs.

Walking aroung in the old town of Havana II

This is the second post on the old town of Havana. I don’t want to write much, but show photos. I hope you enjoy them as much as I enjoys being in Havana.

This time I show you photos taken at the former governors palace. You know, Cuba was founded by the Spanish conquistadores and Havana was the capital (as the successor of Santiago de Cuba, the originally capital).

Our local guide also told us about the place in front of the palace: the ground is covered by wooden tiles instead of  stones. That’s because of noise. In that time, it was common to have a siesta, a rest time during the noon times, because the sun is too hot at that hours.