It was a basement paradar -- very cool. It was set up for late evenings to be a nightclub, which is fine as long as food and drink were still being served.
We each had lamb ropa vieja there, and it was quite good (ropa vieja is one of my two favorite Caribbean dishes.) We also sucked down water after being out in the hot sun.
There was also our first experience with something that seems quite common in Havana restaurants -- no toilet seats on the toilets. I thought maybe it was just in the men's room, but Carol reported the lack of the seat in the women's room as well. It's a regular toilet, but has neither seat nor cover. Given my needs at the time, it wasn't an issue for me. I will never say Cubans don't know squat about going to the bathroom.
After lunch, we were driven over into Central Havana -- shown the Granma museum, the Capitol (under renovation), the ballet place (a beautiful building, the Gran Teatro de la Habana). We parked and walked around the city center, past multiple art galleries, the museum of the revolution, and all over.
Then, we did final treat for the tour. Henry negotiated a ride in a convertible for 10 CUC -- which was parked with many others at Jose Marti Square. I thought, from Henry's gesturing, that we would just be going around the square. Instead our driver for the convertible, Armando, took us all over center city and even Old Havana (not the parts inaccessible to cars, obviously, but the outer roads).
Our ten minute ride lasted more like 20 minutes and it was one of the coolest things you can do in life -- cruising through Havana in a convertible.
We felt like royalty, riding in the back of a beautiful 1958 Ford Fairlane.
This was our Ford Fairlane
-- with a Mitsubishi engine.
After the ride, we got back into our regular cab, and headed off to the Plaza de la Revolucion. (For those of us bad at Spanish, that's the Plaza of the Revolution).
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