okay it's 1pm and i willingly unprompted said to my mate 'hey if we make this a competition on who can finish our finance report first that'll make us way more productive' (bc we're both hateful people) and she agreed and our deadline is 3pm i will keep you posted

HIII omg youre like the only active person writing for Henry Danger and i would like to request dating headcanons with Henry!! (x female reader please!)

A/N- omg no fr it makes me so upset that there's so little fanfics (especially good ones💀) for the danger verse😭

CW- ngl these are kinda halfassed and writen on like 3 hours of sleep, not proof read (only spell checked), physical touch, the L bomb, angst, death, and suggestive if you do the squintiest squint, thats it??

❥ his love language is physical touch and words of affirmation. fight me.

❥ hes gives kinda golden retriever bf vibes, but not like overly or whatever yk??

❥i feel like for your first date, he might want to try hard and do something nice or whatever, especially if you guys weren't friends before hand, but he prefers to just stay home with you and hang out.

❥ i feel like he said 'i love you' first tbh.

you were in (yet another) life or death situation, and he was like kinda panicking. he was getting annoyed with how slow shwoz was working to try and save you or whatever, and he started ranting and somewhere in the rant he ended up saying he loves to, however you heard him say it.

once you were very much so alive and ok, you said it back to him.

❥you'll never miss the chance to sleepover at henrys house. ever. even if you guys have had an argument that same day, or the day before. then however, instead of sleeping in the same bed as him, you'll sleep on the couch that up in the corner of his room.

❥ at first piper definitely tells you that you can do better 💀

❥ you know about his past minor loyalty issues, but he quickly gains absolutely all of your trust once he finds out that you were overthinking it.

❥jasper lowkey be your hype man ngl

❥i wouldn't necessarily say that gift giving is one of his love languages, but if its yours or you want something, hell have absolutely no issue in getting you whatever it is.

❥ when you guys first started dating, you would sneak through his window at night all the time, or after school. one time tho, henrys dad ended up catching you. surprisingly tho, he wasent really upset. he was just like "omg this is awesome this is like the most 'rebellious' teenage activity we've ever gotten out of him" and after stifly waving at you he just walked away.

❥ henry stutters alot when you make him nervous. (which by the way is quite easy to do)

❥ he pays attention to the little stuff just as much as you do tbh.

❥ i feel like he'd make forts with you 😭 he likes making them at night tho, cause then they have less of a chance of getting ruined by his sister. plus, then you guys can go to sleep in them.

❥ catches your hand from a high five so you end up holding hands.

❥ whenever he get jealous, for the most part hes chill. he knows you'll be good on your own, but hell keep a close eye out just incase.

❥ hes pretty protective tho. once again, he knows you can handle yourself, but sometimes people are so rude to you and it makes him mad. however, he tries to keep his composure for everyone sake, and embarrassment.

❥ i feel like hed want to play with your hair?? like you guys would be laying so your back was facing him, and you just feel him start to play with your hair. you could tell he started to attempt to braid it. "henry stop you're gonna make it all tangled" "you want me to make it all tangled?"

Kip v Age of Calamity

For someone who writes tough shit on Age of Calamity, you sure don’t see me writing a better story. So maybe I should stop complaining and be satisfied with what was given to me. 

...or...

...maybe we can dedicated a few hours of my time to spite an ask. 

Even though the entire argument of “why are you mad if you can’t write a story yourself” is inherently flawed and pointless considering that’s the equivalent of telling me I should chug spoiled milk because I’ve never milked a cow, I’ll fucking step up to the plate here, I’ll put my money where my mouth is. 

So here is Part 1 of your residential Kip approved rewrite of Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity. Or as I like to call it: 

Ok so before I get into it, a couple things I wanna establish. First, I know I just said I’m doing this out of spite, but I’m actually also doing this for fun. I really enjoy and am passionate about the writing process, so if you were looking for an angry rant about how terrible everyone’s opinions are about everything, this isn’t that. I don’t think that I am a better writer than anyone, or than the professionals that made this game, or that I am somehow superior to Nintendo. I am someone with the benefit of hindsight, I don’t have the constraints of producers and mandated directives and executives rubbing their hands in the story to make it more marketable or dumbed down or any of the other chaos that goes into crafting a videogame. So while obviously I think the people involved in this could have done a much better job, this isn’t a bash to say, “look how easy it is to make a story” because there’s a ton of unseen drama that goes into development that I have the luxury of avoiding, and it’s a miracle that any games are coherent and enjoyable in the first place. I’m just a lil Kip doing a fun lil exercise. 

This little series is also not going to be a fanfic. I’m going to be telling the story chronologically as if you were playing for yourself, but it’s going to be from my omniscient perspective because 1) I need to relate the story to the gameplay 2) That would take way too much time to actually make this into a fanfiction as it already takes a hell of a lot of time to even plan out the beats of this rewrite and 3) This is less going to be a telling of a story, and more of a fun little exploration on the Three Act Structure and The Hero’s Journey. In fact, I am going to try and keep the given story of Age of Calamity as intact as possible. 

The general ending is going to be the same, the characters used are going to remain roughly unchanged, (there will be no new characters, or removal of characters) and characters that live or die and where they end up are going to be mostly the same with how the original game is written. I know, I know, we all would love to see the Champions die brutally or to get us that sweet sweet Link angst or to have a game with multiple endings. And even though I personally would change some of those premises in Age of Calamity, I’m going to strive to keep it all as intact as possible, just to prove wrong the misconception that the story was only bad because of the writer’s choices for the general arc. I am a firm believer that biggest weaknesses of this game are in its methods of conveying its story, a problem in the storytelling process, and not (necessarily/only) the story product itself. 

If you want to use any of the ideas that I present, go for it! I release them into the public domain, I have no plans whatsoever to write a fanfic for this myself, in fact I already have my own separate Pre-Botw fic story that I am pouring myself into, so I give the people full permission to take these ideas off of me. 

Alrighty! With all that out of the way, let’s get into:

HERE IS THE VERSION IN A GOOGLE DOC FORM BECAUSE TUMBLR HATES YOU MOBILE PEEPS

Spoilers! Obviously. I’m going to act on the assumption that you know the full story of Age of Calamity to save myself some time, capiche?

Ok so we start out the game roughly the same, with eggbot being chased and forced to time travel into a portal. But, there is going to be some important differences in details. 

We have the part of the scene where Zelda awakens her powers, and at the same time, something else in Hyrule Castle glows with the same aura. However, this glow is not coming from the Princess’ Tower, but instead, the camera pulls back from the fields of Fort Hateno, sweeps over Hyrule (where you can see the Guardians and the sense of destruction and all that) and the camera eventually flies over Castle Town, then within the Castle, weaving through the halls, until the camera stop and focuses on the entrance of a destroyed room, slowly creeping in. It’s a room that’s been demolished, stone rubble from Guardian blasts ruin the floor and cave in from the ceiling, there’s a small fire in the corners of the room, and from the props that you can make out, it seems to look like some study or office of some sort. The room is small, but domed and circular, signifying that it’s of a bit more importance than you might think . The desks and books and all buried beneath this collapsed stone brick. But as the camera focuses on that pile of rocks, from within that rubble, you see that same glowing aura that Zelda has, glowing brighter and brighter until finally out pops, eggbot.

Now, you can have that same sequence within the game where he runs around all cute, the outter wall of the room is broken so eggbot can look outside and see the Calamity’s destruction. Then that cut to Zelda saying “I want to save...everyone,” and this is important because I need the fade in between Zelda’s line and the fade back to eggbot to wordlessly imply that he is hearing these words, something that’s already done pretty well in the original cutscene. Anyhow, then the Guardian Stalker pops from behind, prepares to shoot, and eggbot can escape into its little time portal, and then the malice follows or whatever.  

However, I’m not gonna immediately cut to the title, but instead, we have the music build to eggbot’s little jump in a pretty climactic way. But then the music still lingers slightly, and rests in suspense, camera is still looking out the window where eggbot jumped. It pulls back, turning back into this room that eggbot emerged from. Music is still relatively silent. Then, from the corner, you see some of the fire suddenly catch onto something. Flattened between the rocky rubble, just a few feet where eggbot emerged, is a purple cloak, trimmed with gold, flapping just slightly in the wind. [Said flapping being what causes it to catch] The fire catches, burning through the cloak, and underneath it, is a fallen copy of the Sheikah tapestry of 10k years ago. Camera zooms into that art of the Calamity, music suspends, merge to title card, then the music hits that climax and BOOM, “Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity.” Main Theme plays. Let the opening title roll.

Now the reason I changed this slightly is because 1) I wanted to earlier set up some of the plot points that I have planned for this (some of which you might already guess or maybe not who knows *wink wink*) and 2) I think that the original opening could have been much stronger with its hook. Yes, the element of mystery is established with eggbot’s existence and that element of time travel, but then the opening immediately goes into saying “This is the tale of champions, a diminutive Guardian who traveled backwards through time, and the Great Calamity they faced.” So...you just dampened that hook you established two seconds ago because you explained it all. Sure, it doesn’t completely ruin it, but I think the impact would be much stronger if that text wasn’t there at all, and the music and hype of the tapestry moving and coming alive is all there was. I’d much rather that element of time travel just be explained through the cinematography itself, because you can already understand that perfectly with that scene where you see the portal lead into birds flying around a beautiful Hyrule Castle.

Also, the music in this game is fantastic! So letting moments that really let you soak it in, I think would be very beneficial. So now this scene serves as a much more effective hook before we get into the actual plot. The mystery of eggbot’s identity is heightened and left a bit more unexplained, you have this mysterious circular room that you’ve never seen before, and the set up of details that will eventually serve later revelations in the plot, cough cough. 

Then you hit Chapter 1, Link gameplay, eggbot and the tower, that’s all the same. I got no changes for the story there, it’s a great introduction. However! I know my strength here is writing and I am by no means a game developer or designer, but I need, I absolutely need to add one aspect to the gameplay.

Near the end of the first stage, where there are those three moblins at the end, I want to add something that I’m going to call, a gambit. The game already introduced you to the special meter and “press a to use special attack” thing, but I want Impa and Link to use a gambit to defeat this last horde of moblins. Essentially, you press A to use your special attack, BUT, if another character is in proximity, the attack is even more powerful. Every pair of characters has a special little attack, that does tons of damage, and during said sequence, there are voiced lines, or at the very very least text boxes that comment on it. And with this gambit, while a regular solo special attack still does a lot of damage, I’m gonna nerf it slightly to encourage players to use this gambit feature. 

Now, why did I add this? Because I need to better connect this gameplay to the story on more than an external “lets defeat this and go from point A to point B” type of way. I need something in the gameplay to better serve to the game’s main theme of “teamwork makes the dreamwork” and all that. The CURRENT gameplay, although absolutely fun and fantastic, just doesn’t do this. I need just one element to serve this theme while ALSO having the dual purpose of serving as character interaction. The current structure of Age of Calamity works where the sidequests and battle serve as your character interaction, development, and banter, while the cutscenes serve the main story beats, and important plot revelations. The cutscenes just aren’t crafted to support the weight of these dozens of characters while also giving them all interesting interactions, and that’s fine! So I’m just adding this feature to the gameplay, because being able to customize different lines for different characters for different stages that are voiced will go a long way into making the character development seem more fleshed out. And this gambit feature doesn’t necessarily change the way you play the game drastically, as you can still have four character slots and have them split up to take on the battlefield, but now you can split them off into groups of 2. And also, because I’m not completely blind to game design, the damage percentage boost of these gambit attacks will not increase as much, just slightly lower, than the damage boost of a solo attack when you level up. So what I mean is, when your character is weaker level, you are forced to rely on others in order to defeat your enemies, but, with the way the leveling up percents work, your characters can still reach a point where they can defeat big bosses all on their own without gambits. THAT way, when certain events happen in later chapters, when your character is all leveled up, (and maybe they awaken a sacred power or two) it feels all the more powerful when you can go off on your own. You can feel how your character has grown in strength because you can contrast it with your teamwork gameplay of earlier levels. AND it still highlights the importance of that theme of companionship, because you would never have gotten to this level of strength had you not relied on your friends. 

OK, so the stage 1 ends with a gambit attack, Impa compliments Link’s fighting style or something that shows her admiration or respect for him. And then stage 2 for the Road to the Royal Lab is the same, but gambit dialogue for that stage is Impa complimenting Link, Impa being protective of Zelda, and since this is Zelda’s first playable area, Zelda’s gambit lines can be about kinda brushing Link aside like “I want to capable to hold my own in battle but thank you” to Link (cause I never really got that same “I don’t really like you” vibe that is established in botw for this game) and then to Impa Zelda’s gambit lines can be like “is this thrill what you always feel when battling?” and Impa is like “yeah isn’t it great we should do it more often!” and then you can allude to that with a sidequest for Zelda’s training or something. I just want to better connect sidequest stories with this stuff. And also, gambits are obviously optional so that’s why this is all just banter and character development and not actually plot points, and I’m going to stick with just one-on-one dialogue, although it should be theoretically possible to have gambit boosts of three and four, but I feel that would be too much as I don’t want to ruin the gameplay balance and encourage you to keep all four character slots close together, because splitting them up is an important part of the game. Anyhow!

So Chapter 1 is done, my changes being almost purely in the gameplay because this is the start of the story and the character set up is important. Chapter 1 to Chapter 2 is basically the establishment of the ordinary world, and in the Three Act Structure it’s basically Act 1. Act 1 is all about set up. I need to really focus this chapter on both introducing the player to the mechanics of the game, having them connect to the characters and the characters connect to each other through the gameplay, and I need to establish this tone so that when I rip it away, and change the tone during the threshold, it feels more meaningful and suspenseful. 

As you can see from the diagrams, Act 1 has something called the Inciting Incident. The Inciting Incident is going to be the Yiga attack in Chapter 2, where our heroes first experience the true dangers of their journey, and there is no turning back. BUT I’m getting ahead of myself.

Chapter 2 is also exactly the same. I would literally change nothing about the Champion’s sections (other than my addition of gambit interaction of course) because they’re all pretty great. For the record, yes, evil egg is still a thing, and yes, Zelda and the gang can still discover those pictures of the Calamity in eggbot, yes you beat up Revali, and the Divine Beast sequences are the same. I just really need that gambit dialogue to help establish character relations. Revali quips at Link, Mipha protects him, Daruk is his buddy [I thought a cool gambit attack for Link and Daruk to better show that they are old friends could be them both chewing down on some rocks, before striking an enemy simultaneously. Because they never eat rocks together and I just want this ok] Kohga is the same, Sooga is the same, BUT, for that scene when you first meet Astor in the Yiga base, I need two things to happen. 1) The camera reveal for Astor starts at his cloak, which is intact and NOT tattered like how his design is in game. It’s a deep purple with gold trim, the camera pans up to the back of Astor’s head. Now 2) When the camera moves to look at Astors face, I need him to be standing in front of and staring solemnly at the evil eggbot. He’s frowning, and his eyes suggest something like he’s deep in thought of something in the distant past. That’s how the scene starts, and in the background is Kohga recounting the events of his failure to beat Urbosa and the gang. Then, Kohga can say something funny to annoy him, Astor’s face changes to your classic villain disgust. Then, he can get a bit pissed and go on his little rant about how pathetic the Yiga are and how the Calamity is trapped within the evil eggbot and how he will use his powers to end the Kingdom of Hyrule. Then he can take his little astrolabe and be all “My harbinger, show me the future!” and all that. IMPORTANT LINE CHANGE,  Astor’s motivation here is not “The future, as it will and must be. I will not allow anyone to alter its course.” Instead, I need to tweak it slightly to be, “The future, as it was fated to always be. The pathetic stories and legends of children and false kings cannot waver this course. I will not allow it, for my sake…” camera pans to the broken evil guardian, Astor’s voice lowers just slightly. “...and yours.” The slightest, almost silent bits of the harmonies (not the melody) of the Hwaoc Main Theme play before fully fading back to Astor’s theme. And the final shot of that scene is Astor, looking down at the heap of Sheikah tech, with a neutral expression, but then looking back up at the malice stars, and the future visions of the Calamity. He just ever so slightly smiles. 

[Also I JUST realized that the harbinger is actually slightly above Astor, because it’s supposed to show that the power dynamic is really Calamity Ganon is in control, so ignore the “looking down” parts I talked about, and just think in the broad direction of Astor looks at the guardian, and then looks further up at the ceiling with the Calamity and the future and then he smiles]

For that scene, I also need to remove any characterization where Astor is laughing and being joyous at the impending destruction, I only need that smile at the end. There is no villainous cartoon laughter, at least, not yet. Also the part where Sooga calls Astor a fool for thinking he can control the Calamity is GREAT I need that, that absolutely needs to stay in.

And then Chapter 2 closes off with that Yiga ambush. That’s the inciting incident, so I need the tone at the end to be slightly different. Instead of ending on that cute little thing where eggbot points angrily at Link, (like that part can still EXIST in there BUT) I need it to end on a more serious note. 

Referring back to the Hero’s Journey, the Call to Adventure is the parts of each of the Champion’s recruitment. They each have their initial reasons for joining the fight, whether to protect their people, to feel validated for their skill, to get closer to the ones they love etc etc that’s all established in their respective stages.

This Yiga stage, however, serves as the official barrier between Act 1 and Act 2, the threshold between the known world and the unknown world, where the heroes prepare to seek out the obstacle that stands in the way of their goal. It’s important that this threshold establishes a sense of urgency, because that better gets you invested in the stakes, and helps the story's momentum to move forward. IT shows that the journey and adventure that these characters want/need to take is outside the safety of their home/known world.

In the original game, the threshold ends with that cute scene of eggbot and Zelda and Link and the Zelink vibes. That’s not bad, but it’s also not good. The momentum towards the later confrontation in Korok forest needs to feel more important, because this is a major turning point in the story. SO, I am going to add one more scene at the end. It’s just after the ambush, after the fires have died down, and Zelda (and in the back the Champions) discussing the events with the King. I want King Rhoam to a few things. First, I need him to kinda berate the Champions for falling for the Yiga’s “splitting them up trick” and leaving his daughter vulnerable. This 1) establishes doubt within the party, which makes for better uncertainty for the future and later internal conflict. This was supposed to be the dream team but the King is already kinda telling them off. 2) This also still characterizes the King as someone who cares for his daughter’s safety. That care for his daughters safety is layered in the subtext of him saying something like “Your priority must be to protect the only person capable of sealing the Calamity. You were so concerned with victory and glory in battle that you forgot that the fate of this kingdom lies on my daughter’s survival.” and blah blah blah. The King can also congratulate Link for keeping Zelda safe, and this is GREAT because that can add further to Zelda’s slight resentment for him, as he’s getting the approval from the King that she has yet to receive. But like overall the King is like “don’t leave my daughter alone cause she almost got killed if it weren’t for Link wtf.” and then that can also be a further excuse to hurry to korok forest to find the wielder of the sword so that they can better protect “not just the Princess, but the entire world,” something something fancy kingly dialogue. 

Also when the Champions leave THIS can also be the time where Zelda gives that Sheikah device thingy to Rhoam and also where he sees eggbot. I know that happens a bit later, but for pacing purposes and for the sake of the story changes that I made, it better serves to place it here. That interaction itself can stay mostly the same as it is in the game.

So now, the threshold ends with a bit more tension. The Champion squad is powerful, but also has flaws in how they were split up by the Yiga, (cough cough I wonder if that serves the themes of the game in some way cough cough) and it’s not just “smooth sailing” into the search for the Master Sword, and the stakes are a bit rocky as we finally enter into the story’s Act 2.

= = = = = 

And that’s Part 1 of my rewrite. Not really a lot, cause again this is mainly character set up, and establishing stuff, but personally I think it’s already a bit stronger than how Age of Calamity did it. Stay tuned for Part 2 either tonight or tomorrow, mwahaha. 

Predict the future if you can...

Cuba, Getting in and then Enjoying Yourself.

In 2016, President Obama lifted restrictions on travel to Cuba. Up until this time, American citizens could travel to Cuba with special permission from the state department; one had to go with a tour group for a specific reason listed by the government. With his historic move, Obama made is so we as citizens can travel to Cuba much easier. While you still cannot travel for "tourism", there are a list of 12 reasons for travel. My wife and I chose the Education and we planned our itinerary accordingly, which included museum visits as well as meeting with a film photographer teacher, and staying at a Cuban house for our stay. 

Many people have asked me about how we went about getting "permission" to go, and the answer is simple; We bought plane tickets. We chose to fly Jetblue, so this is specifically our experience with them, however, I do not think that other airlines are going to be different, my friends flew Spirit, and they had a similar experience, albeit worse, but that is because Spirit is awful. 

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When you buy plane tickets, the airline will ask you which of the 12 reasons your trip to Cuba falls under, and then they will send you an email affidavit, which you electronically fill out and return. When we arrived at Fort Lauderdale Airport, we had to get in line to purchase our Cuban visa, which, through Jetblue, cost us $50.00 (my friends said Spirit charged them $100 and only accepted cash.) We got our Cuban visa and our tickets were stamped to indicate the same. Other friends who went actually went to the Cuban Embassy in DC and got their visa that way, which is also a choice, but, with Jetblue making it so easy, we avoided that. 

When you arrive in Cuba, the immigration and customs is just like any other country, they stamp your passport, and let you in. Returning to the US was the same, and we had the nicest customs agent we have ever encountered. He did not ask us a single thing about where we had been. The whole process was simple and required less hassle than our visa for Brazil or China. We decided to go before the inauguration, in case that cheeto-idiot decided to make travel more difficult. 

You're in Cuba!

With all that out of the way, it is time to discuss being in Havana. Make sure you have cash, as you will not be able to use credit cards or ATM cards while in Cuba (this goes for USA, other countries you can use your cards, I think) and the exchange rate is 1:1 for the Cuban Convertable Note, the CUC. There is also another currency, though we never got any of it. We exchanged money at the airport; there were two upstairs and one downstairs. 

At the airpot we picked up a taxi for 30 CUC to China Town area, which is where we were staying. Our taxi had put a screen over his rearview, ok Cuba, I like your style!

The ride to airport took around 30 minutes and took us directly to our house. Unfortunately, our house had a problem and we could not stay. In what was a good introduction, the owner had found us a better house at the same rate (30cuc a night) closer to downtown to stay in, which he walked us to. The place to stay was found by my wife on TripAdvisor forum, which she uses a lot as a resource for finding places to stay.  

Our first night in Havana we had no plans, only walking around a little bit and then turning in early, as we had gotten in later in the day. I wish I had the information for our new place, as it was wonderful and the family who owned the house were great, but I was unable to get it from them; language barrier. 

The first full day we were there, to fulfill our "requirements" of visit, we headed over to the Plaza De Revolution to educate ourselves on the revolution that saw Fidel take power. The walk was about 45 minutes or so from our house and was pretty straight. We saw a lot of stuff on the walk including tons of nice people. The streets of Havana are very narrow with houses on each side. 

At the center of the plaza is the Jose Marti Memorial which has a memorial at the base. The museum is pretty nice, though it is not air conditioned. The cost to get into the memorial and the museum is about 5 bucks, so not bad. If one is so inclined, there are taxis as well as pristine convertibles to take you around the city, we did not do this, though it is very popular. 

After the plaza, we took a long meandering route towards Old Havana and along the waterfront. There were men fishing over the waterfront, which was scenic. The car tours take you along this route, so convertibles pass by frequently. 

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We ended up strolling all the way to Plaza de Armas, which is where we saw the most tourists, as this was close to where the cruise ships come into port and everyone gets off. There were shops and stalls, and I bought an expensive Coke, 4 bucks! This to me felt like the most "fake" part of Havana. When one thinks of Cuba, they think of old cars, old buildings, here there were no old cars, just 78 million tourists and things to be sold to tourists. I did enjoy the open air market in the park, people selling posters and shirts, records and books, that was really cool.

In this area was also this old pharmacy that is still in business. I was only able to take the one above photo as my film speed was slow and inside it was not that bright. 

The rest of the day was walking the city streets and shooting photos, dinner, then back to our place. The next day was more of the same, with the addition of meeting some friends of friends from Miami. We ended up walking around, shooting photos, and getting dinner. After dinner we wandered about and sat in a square, in some chairs, just talking for about 4 hours. A stray dog hopped in my lap and fell asleep as I pet her, it was a wonderful experience. I also met a photography teacher, Ossain. He came to our house to just hang out. He was a great guy. 

The Food

A lot of people always ask about the food when we travel places, and the answer we always give is "Eh". Neither of us is huge foodies (my wife is to a point, but finding vegan options is not always easy) we usually just buy food at a market and make meals at our hostel, hotel, or home. In this case, we ate at the same place twice, which was a Chinese restaurant. To give you an idea of how this place was, they had fries on the menu but had no fries, they had a full menu, only three of which were Chinese. The rest of the menu was a normal menu, the first night I got shrimp, which was pretty good, the second night I got pizza. 

I did get some absolutely delicious ice-cream on the street twice, do not pass up street ice-cream. 

The Cars

When people think of Cuba, they think of the cars. Everyone has heard it, I was ready to see them, I am not sure I was ready to see as many as I saw. The historic cars were everywhere, literally everywhere. If I wanted a photo with a specific color car, I had to wait a few minutes at most for that color car to come by. If I wanted to take a photo of a building on a side street with a car in front of it, I had to wait a few minutes. The amount of old cars here is staggering, as well as awesome. 

Instax

My wife and I both brought our instax cameras, and unbeknownst to each other, we had both planned on taking photos of people and them giving them to whomever we photographed. Between the two of us we gave away about 80 photos to people on the street. As neither of use really shoot people, we weren't sure how people would react to this, but let me say, people absolutely loved it. My wife to a photo at the bar in the photo below, and after a few minutes, everyone in the bar came out, wanted their own photos, wanted photos with each other, it was absolutely amazing. 

The above kids were playing soccer in the street, and I took a photo of the kid in jeans. I handed it to him when it was done developing, and when I looked back, all the kids were so hyped. The kid in the blue shorts took the photo and ran into the house to show everyone, and then my wife took the remainder of her shots of the kids. I was out at this point. 

The people of Cuba were nothing short of wonderful. Everyone was friendly and helpful if need be. Not once while I was here, both in the day and the evening, did I feel unsafe or uncomfortable. I would, without hesitation, visit Cuba again, and would like to go across the island more. 

The return journey to the airport was a trip, we had to catch a taxi, and some random guy on the street got one for us, then got in with us. We had to get gas, which we did at some random house out of a milk jug, and we were on our way. We took a different route to airport, which I think was to avoid paying a fee to drop us off. It was the perfect way to close out our short but wonderful trip to an island that seem shrouded in misconceptions. Go to Cuba, enjoy Cuba, we did. 

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