On August 17th my right eye retina detached playing tennis.  I didn’t realize something was amiss until I got home and looked into a mirror.  I was seeing a black semi-circle ringed with red near my nose, while in the error, nothing wrong appeared.   

Cuba Part 3-Feb 2016

Before we left the Miramar, we walked around and went inside the huge Catholic Church nearby.  We came just after service on Sunday where a few parishioners were gathered around the priest in discussion.  Soon after Castro came to power the country became atheist and church goers were forbidden to become members of the Communist Party.  Here is an excerpt from Wiki--  Castro was baptized and raised a Roman Catholic as a child but did not practice as one. In Oliver Stone's documentary Comandante, Castro states "I have never been a believer", and has total conviction that there is only one life. Pope John XXIII excommunicated Castro in 1962 after Castro suppressed Catholic institutions in Cuba. Castro has publicly criticized what he sees as elements of the Bible that have been used to justify the oppression of both women and people of African descent throughout history.

In 1992, Castro agreed to loosen restrictions on religion and even permitted church-going Catholics to join the Communist Party of Cuba. He began describing his country as "secular" rather than "atheist".^[5] Pope John Paul II visited Cuba in 1998, the first visit by a reigning pontiff to the island. Castro and the Pope appeared side by side in public on several occasions during the visit. Castro wore a dark blue business suit rather than fatigues in his public meetings with the Pope and treated him with reverence and respect.

So even now the Catholic religion does not have but a small following in Cuba.  The church showed small signs of disrepair but I image the maintenance upkeep lies outside the church’s meager funding. 

 Iglesia de Jesús de Miramar is the second largest church in Cuba.  It was begun in 1948 and inaugurated on May 28, 1953. It is constructed in the Romanesque-Byzantine style. The murals in the church were painted by the Spanish painter, Cesareo Marciano Hombrados y de Onativia. There are more than 266 figures represented in the 14 large murals.

The largest pipe organ in Cuba (with 5000 pipes) was inaugurated on November 22, 1956 in the church. Parts of the organ were brought from Spain and the rest was constructed in the Church.

We also found a small shopping center where these elephants dominated the square.  On Sunday the youth of Cuba surrounded the telephone company to buy internet cards and then sat outside thumbing away.  We had lunch there twice at local prices.

Here is another place we ate lunch one day as we met Judith’s colleague Nadine and our interpreter for the coming meetings, Anita, whose command of English was outstanding.  A band played some Cuban-American music in a relaxing atmosphere while we drank way too many rum drinks.

Time came when it was time to check out of the Miramar and check into one the most famous of spots in Cuba, the Nacional de Cuba Hotel.  Amongst hundreds of famous movie stars, dignitaries, presidents that have stayed here, in 1946 the hotel closed to the public to host members of the American Cosa Nostra families.  http://www.hotelnacionaldecuba.com/en/history.asp
He stayed in the Steven Spielberg room next to the Caesar Romeo room.
I gathered our entire luggage while Judith was off visiting a medical site, and taxied to the Nacional one morning and explored history as I waited for her to return that afternoon. Some photos—

The lobby early morning

Swimming pool under repair.

To be continued