This is a picture of things I am bringing with me. Two backpacks for my trip and two luggages of things to give away in Cuba. Hola , mi Cubanos. Christmas is coming. My group from my acting class final performance this weekend. I played a heartless doctor from the play “A Change of Plans”

Do you remember what it’s like before you had a cell phone or are on the computer for 8 hours a day? I don’t really remember, but as I get closer to starting the trip, I think about how my life on the road would be different. No cell phone, no constant high speed internet connection (I can no longer feed my addiction of checking email every two minutes), little access to people I know and talk to often, but at the same time, I now have the opportunity to see, do and experience a lot of new things.
I sold my bedroom furnitures, my bed, my desk, my car and gave away a lot of stuff to friends. The only thing I have left are two boxes and two bags I left with Jose and my two backpacks that I am bringing with me. How strange to think that all I really need are two backpacks when all this time, I have had a full apartment of things. I will miss the comfort of big fluffy towels and my soft pillow-top mattress. Instead I will be sleeping on people’s couches (I use www.couchsurfing.com to look for couches to sleep on, and yes I intend to sleep on someone’s couch in every country I go to) and stay in hostels.

Last night I dreamed about traveling in Cuba. Tonight, my dream comes true.
http://picasaweb.google.com/cwjacklin/20080427_preTrip

Today I went boating with Jose and Carlos down around Key Largo. The sky was clear, water was very calm and sun was out. Pretty much the perfect day to enjoy the day out on the water. We met at Jose’s parents’ house. I went in and greeted his parents. They are probably in their 60′s or early 70′s. Jose told them that I am about to go on my 9-12 months trip starting in Cuba. Immediately, their faces turned from joyous ones into questioning and disapproving look. “Why are you going there?” “You are supporting Castro by giving him your money?” I knew Cubans in Miami usually don’t like Fidel, but boy, this was my first hand encounter with them and they definitely will let you know they don’t support Fidel. I discreetly extracted myself and went on my merry way.

Later that afternoon, we took the boat out and was cruising down the coast at a good 34 knots. The water was calm so that made the boat ride a smooth one. For a while, I was sitting up at the front of the boat, the wind blowing in my face. Even with my glasses, the wind was making my teary eyed, but it felt really awesome.

On our way to Tiki Bar, a restaurant where boats can pull up to dock, we stopped to get some gas. So if you think your car eats up too much gas, check this out. This was the bill for half a tank of gas on a 28 feet boat!!!

I guess I won’t be getting a boat any time soon.

So Carlos and I started talking about Fidel and why the Cubans in Miami don’t like him. Eventually we got around to talking about Jose’s parents and their dislike for Fidel. As it turned out, the old man I met a couple hours earlier, who sat pleasantly in his lazy boy chair, tried to start a mini-revolution against Fidel’s government in 1998. The story goes … he and his two buddies took a small fishing boat, one probably not much bigger than the 28 feet boat we were in, filled it with rifles, small arms and grenade, and arranged to meet their Cuban counters parts at a bay in Cuba. Maybe Bay of Pigs?! Of course, something went wrong; because of some miscommunication, they never made the connection and had to hide in some country house for a few days. The Cuban government somehow found out about it and caught them, sentencing them to 26 years in jail.

Putting things in perspective; these were 3 grandfathers, who back in 1998 would have been in their late 50′s or early 60′s, armed with rifles and granades attempting to do what the CIA and anti-Castro groups could not do in the 1960′s. I couldn’t help laughing when I heard this. I just met a real-life revolutionary rebel. Picture this, 3 old men on a fishing boat, trekking the 90 miles to start a revolution against Cuba, run by the bearded one…ie Fidel.

Haha. Luckily for them, Cuban government probably just thought these were 3 harmless grandfathers who had too much time on their hands. So after 3 years, they were released from prison to go back to Miami. Fidel probably got a good laugh out of this I am sure.

More pictures here

I’ve never done any types of martial arts before, so I thought I’d learn some self-defense skills. Plus it might come in handy during my trip. Who knows?

In the last two months I have been training Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu with Pablo Papovitch’s camp here in FL; I do mostly BJJ with gi and a few wrestling and no-gi classes to round out the skills. Friday nights, there’s also MMA training, but usually I just go in to roll with the guys and leave when MMA starts. I feel pretty comfortable rolling with other white belts in the class now and do decently against them, but I haven’t trained much in stand up fights.

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After spending couple hours, I got the blog site fixed up. I am actually pretty proud of myself since I ran into some pretty technical nuances.

I was talking to my roommate about whether I should have a traveling partner or not. I mean I will meet up with Roberto, but that won’t be until I get to S. America. Ideally I would want to be with friends when I get to the many beautiful historic sites so I can have better memories of them. Chances are pretty slim that I will find someone who will drop their life as is and go travel with me just like that. That person would have to have minimal responsibilities so she can just pick up and go, have some money saved up (although not absolutely necessary), would want to travel and hopefully speaks Spanish. Trip will cost $20k. Will I be willing to shell out another $20k to pay for another person’s expenses so I have a travel partner. Hmm I guess I don’t see why not. It’s much easier to make $20k than to have 1 whole year off to do something like this. So who wants to go backpacking around the world for the next 9-12 months?

Then again I will have to see that person everyday for the next 9 months. That’s almost like getting married. Actually it’s worse than getting married since I won’t get time to go to “work” or go out with friends.  Well if I do find someone, it’ll be a little preview of what married life is like.