The last full day in Cuba was certainly as much of an adventure as the rest of the trip. My trip roommate, Erin Green, and I woke up and headed over to the Hotel National de Cuba for a buffet breakfast—the first that even slightly resembled American cuisine. Once I had finished eating, I met with one of my class project teams for a debriefing and reflection on a discussion we had with our tour guide. When that came to completion, I met up with Nathan, Margaret, John, Sierra, and Bowen to go purchase our souvenirs to remember the trip and share with friends and family. The best place to do this, we heard from a few local sources, was the large covered market on the other side of Old Havana along the Malecon. We took two coco taxies for the six of us to motor us over. When we got there, I was surprised by the vast quantity and rather high quality of paintings sold along the edges of the trinket booths. I purchased a few paintings for my home and my parents. My options ranged from images of Fidel Castro’s face and street scenes in Havana to fabric collage and large abstract paintings. The trinkets available were everything imaginable with “Havana” printed or painted on it, from T-shirts to demitasse cups. My favorite was the shower curtains that had famous Cuban art printed on them. The market itself was quite fascinating. It was like shopping in an art museum with low prices! For lunch, a group of us ate at our first hotel’s restaurant, Hotel Terral. This is where Nathan and I split our very last seafood paella, which had two mini squid and a nice lobster tail on the top. Delicious! This is also where mine and Erin’s adventure really took off. Erin had a friend who studied abroad in Cuba. This friend wanted her to deliver some gifts to her host family, so she undertook the task and allowed me to act as sidekick. We took a taxi to get there, and once we had introduced ourselves, gave them the gifts and enjoyed a refreshing cup of sweet mango juice. The host father gave us Cuban pesos so that we could take the public city bus—Havana’s main provider of public transportation. The bus was pretty empty where we got on, but about twenty minutes into the ride as we got closer to Old Havana, the bus got more and more crowded. Then a woman was kind enough to let us know that we had been sitting in seats reserved for children, so we immediately got up and received smiles and giggles from the Cubans all around us. When we saw the Hotel National, we hopped off and checked public transportation off our list of cultural explorations. We then had our closing, good-bye toast at the Hotel National de Cuba, which was a fabulous end to a great trip! Thank you, Carol, Erin, and Nathan for all the planning and hard work. I had a truly memorable time.