Cuba: Havana

First impression of Havana.. It's like Guadeloupe, only much bigger, with many more people, and they all speak Spanish :-D . Joking aside, there's far more difference than that — the architecture alone, for a start: the style is nothing alike, everything is much bigger and very colourful, in very bright colours... Sadly most of the buildings are falling into ruin, which is a shame; I can imagine how flashy all of it must have been in the fifties.

The city's population seems to be doing broadly all right... I don't actually know, mind you, but I can count on one hand the people who look homeless, which surprises me in a city of over three million. The colours of the buildings, the famous American classic cars — all of it gives the city a certain character. A quick aside on the cars, and this isn't only true of Havana: overall they're in worse condition than in the photos. The interiors really do smell of patching things up, while the outside is more or less passable... But they run :-D .
Broadly, I like Havana, I like wandering around it, but it's a capital, a big city, and to my eyes it has the flaws of big cities: everything is very large and people aren't necessarily all that warm. This is of course only my modest experience and my humble opinion.
When I say people in this city aren't all that warm, I'm obviously excluding my hosts, who were incredibly kind and incredibly generous with their time.
So, after three days, I judged that I'd spent enough time in Havana and wanted to move on... I knew I'd come back before leaving Cuba anyway. Off to Santiago de Cuba!