Okay, now to describe the Big Day…
Christine and Martin’s wedding was scheduled for 2:00 pm. I swear, that day was the hottest day of the entire week. We stood there at the wedding gazebo, sweat running down our backs, waiting for the bride and groom to appear. They appeared separately in a white horse-drawn carriage. The ceremony itself was very short, not even ten minutes. There was live music and champagne after the ceremony, and lots of photo ops! Afterwards, everyone made a beeline for the pool. We swam away the afternoon and then got ready for the reception. Dinner was at the International restaurant. While the set-up and the food was very nice, the only unfortunate part was that we had to share the restaurant with another wedding party. I think everyone was proud that we were the more rowdy party, making much more noise and therefore having much more fun! At one point, the DJ began to play “I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing” by Aerosmith, which turned out to be the other couple’s song. We all began to sing along until the bridesmaids from the other reception started to give us throat-cutting gestures. Apparently, our singing was not welcome. Later on, the toasts came. While Steven made a really nice toast to his sister, there were some other speeches that were not quite so moving… Anyway, after dinner we all assembled at the snack bar, where we had a DJ for 2 hours. At this point, a bunch of people proceeded to throw Martin into the pool. Those who didn’t remained behind to sip on mimosas, our drink of choice for celebrating!
The next day, Martin’s sister had somehow gotten a hold of some mint from some guy, somewhere. Apparently, it’s difficult to get real mint and she referred to it as “black-market mint”. Seems all of our supplies were illicit (which reminds me I didn’t describe the part where the boys bought cigars – that’ll be next!). Anyway, I was very excited, because then I would finally be able to try a mojito! The bartenders were happy to make us a bunch of mojitos using the mint we provided. And it was worth it, what a tasty refreshing drink!
Okay, so I forgot to talk about the market. I think we went on Tuesday. Anyway, we went to reception so that they would call us a cab (or three – we were 10 people). We waited an hour before anyone showed up. By this time, we were in the process of making arrangements with the calèche driver who would take 2 trips to get us all to the market. Anyway, we finally made it to the market, only to discover it was rather dumpy and small. But whatever, that’s all part of the adventure, isn’t it? Despite the disappointing market, I found it exciting enough to simply walk and shop among real locals. Including the homeless bum with the horrible teeth who would talk at you until you gave him some money. He was really good at it and eventually persuaded Mike to give him his spare change. Upon receiving the money he blessed him, his wife and his children! There were also two young guys that immediately pegged us as tourists (how could you not?!) and asked Dave and Mike if they wanted to buy cigars. When the guys said yes, the young Cuban guys told them to follow. I decided to go with the guys because I was already bored with the market. When the Cuban guys walked out of the market area, I realized that we hadn’t told the others where we were going. But I figured we weren’t going far. Boy, was I wrong! We walked for about ten minutes along a highway. I told Mike I wanted to turn back but he advised me not to. “What’s the worst that could happen?” I asked. “Pretty bad” he answered. So I continued on. Eventually, Dave and Mike were starting to get annoyed, having no idea where these other guys were taking us. They finally said that they didn’t want to go any further and forced one of the Cuban kids to go to his house and come back with the cigars. There was some back-and-forthing because the kids were afraid of carrying them around because they could get caught by the police. Anyway, Dave and Mike finally won out and we rested under a tree with the other guy and a rather skinny horse. Cuban kid #1 eventually came back with several boxes of cigars. The wheeling and dealing started and the Cuban kids wanted souvenirs, namely Dave’s watch. No go! Anyway, the guys managed to knock 10 pesos off of the original asking price, which was a pretty good deal. Once that was done, we walked through the heat back to the market, the guys’ pockets stuffed with illegal merchandise.
Hmm, I think that about sums up our Cuban adventures... I'll have to ponder a while and see if I forgot anything.
