“I can’t believe we’re in Cuba!”

I had done it. I had entered Cuba, and was about to embark on a vacation I had dreamed about since I was 10-years-old. I couldn’t shut up about it.

My girlfriend Liz and I were standing in line at José Martí International Airport’s cash exchange office, waiting to collect the Convertible Cuban Pesos (basically “Tourist Pesos”, Cuba has a duel cash economy for residents and non-residents), our only means of paying for anything on the island during our five-day stay, when I came to a realization that added a jumpstart to our tropical adventure:

“This isn’t my luggage.”

In all the hubbub of making it through Customs and Immigration, navigating the sea of overloaded luggage carts, handing our medical clearance form to a woman standing in the middle of the crowd in a lab coat, finding our hired taxi driver in the throng waiting outside, beating the manifests of four other planes that landed just after ours to the only open cash exchange office (shortening our anticipated wait time to at least an hour), and getting on our way to our apartment in Havana–I had walked out with a green hiking pack that was nearly identical to mine—yet contained none of my belongings.

“Ok. This is an easy fix,” I thought to myself. “All I have to do is explain my way back through Customs and Immigration’s levels of security, find my bag, and switch it out with the stranger’s bag I was carrying…all with a Spanish vocabulary I haven’t used since elementary school.” The tiny American voice in me hadn’t stopped laughing at “explain my way back through Customs–“.

Almost immediately though, something that would become a theme of the trip and really come to symbolize Cuba to me, materialized: “Don’t worry. It’ll work out”.

A wave of calm washed over me and I left Liz in line to try my hand at Emergency Spanish 101–and after a series of lame hand gestures, terrible vocabulary exercises, and a little luck–I was grabbed by the proverbial ear by an eight months’ pregnant Customs Supervisor, whisked through back room explanations to bemused agents, and was eventually reunited with my luggage within an hour! I honestly couldn’t believe it. As I adjusted my pack and averted my gaze while walking back through the crowd awaiting arrivals outside the airport (who by this time had seen me pass about seven times), I looked down at my t-shirt emblazoned with a the artwork of a tifo I had made for a Minnesota United FC match a few months back and chuckled to myself, “We’re Just Happy to Be Here!” it cheerfully announced.

Reunited (with my luggage) and it feels so good.

As with most everyone else who enjoys the sport, I tend to use soccer to connect with the people I’m around. I don’t have to be traveling, it’s just something that I use to get a foot in the conversational door. Even if people hate the sport, there is usually something we can connect on.

I had come to Cuba with wild fantasies about having long conversations about clubs, international teams, and players. “It’s ‘The World’s Game’ after all, surely somebody around me wants to talk soccer!” Not so much.

While soccer is growing in popularity on the island, Cuban Soccer is constantly having to be rebuilt as Cuban players have a habit of defecting during international friendlies. Fidel’s beloved baseball remains king, and my luggage situation made it clear I wasn’t going to be having in-depth conversations about tactics and formations any time soon. My completely naive self was also convinced I would just waltz into a sporting goods store and snag a sweet Cuban National Team kit for my ever-growing collection.

An inspirational billboard outside of Coliseo de la Ciudad Deportiva

I’m an idiot.

Cuban Communism was not hip to the awesome trend of me stuffing my dresser to the gills with kits from every corner of the planet. “Surely there had to be somewhere in Cuba to purchase a Cuban National Team shirt”, I would think to myself while walking the streets of Havana, “I just saw a guy stepping off a city bus wearing one, that’s good enough proof for me!”

That would prove to be false.

The face of Che Guevara on the side of the Ministry of the Interior overlooking Plaza de la Revolución.

The story continues in “I’m Not From Around Here: Cuba – Part II”, when Liz and travel to Trinidad in Souheastern Cuba and eat with cutlery fit for Cristiano Ronaldo.