Let me be the first.

You absolutely positively have to read about the Coconut Guys.

Dos Cubanos en Rusia

Van dos cubanos de visita a Rusia y uno de ellos le pregunta al otro,,,
¿Como vamos a pedir comida?
---El otro responde: dejame eso a mi y tu veras como me entiendo con los rusos.
Llama al mesero y le dice:
---Quierosky arrosky blancosky con frijolosky negrosky.
Al poco rato, el mesero le trae arroz con frijoles negros, tal y como lo habia pedido, a lo que el cubano comento:
-!Que facil es esto chico!-
Entonces el mesero les dice:
"Suertosky que yo soysky cubanosky porque sinosky iban a comersosky mierdosky los dosky"

:) Melek

Thanks for the link Val. But if young girls on the beach is not your thing, here's my link about the best mamey shakes in South Florida....

http://mpancier.blogspot.com/2006/05/un-viejo-su-coche-y-un-batido-de-mamey.html#links

About a week ago I changed the desktop background image on my laptop after a year's worth of staring at the pre-loaded IBM stylized time-zone map that popped up the first time I booted the machine.

It's been three months since I last saw my wife Yuliet - who remains in Cuba awaiting both a US visa and a Cuban white card exit permit - and despite the fact that esperanza es lo ultimo que se pierde, well...hope does wane.

I placed on my desktop a photo taken in Cuba this February by a Slovenian who was part of a professional cycling team that was competing in the Vuelta Ciclistica a Cuba. I shamefully don't remember his name. He snapped the picture just outside of Cienfuegos, near a tourist beach hotel called "Rancho Luna." It was the evening of the 15th of February and the sunset had been one of the most spectacular I'd ever seen in that most beautiful of beautiful countries.

I'm in Italy now, racing for the same Italian cycling team with which I rode the Tour of Cuba, and every day here - while enjoyable - is indelibly marked by my wife's absence.

The photo, which I've posted to my cycling website to share with you (http://joepapp.com/index.php?page=detailsnews&element=160) is of nothing more than a simple, worn-out abandoned pier no longer connected to land. The sun has just set and it's a melancholy, yet hauntingly beautiful scene.

To me, that pier, that sunset, that water all represent a Cuba that is inaccessible, shattered, sorrowful and yet eternally beautiful, despite the pestilence plaguing her.