
Necropolis Cristobal Colon
Our next stop.It was established by royal decree in 1866.

Jose Marti
The statue of Jose Marti. It was completed in 1958 during the final days of the Bautista dictatorship.

Ministry of the Interior Building
The face of Che Guevara. It says, "Hasta la Victoria Siempre" (Until the everlasting victory).

Ministry of Communications Building
The face of Camilo Cienfuegos. It says, "Vas bien Fidel" (You're doing fine, Fidel).

Plaza de la Revolution
Revolution Square. Osmin is telling us about the revolution and FIdel Castro. Revolution Square is used for large gatherings. It's where Castro would speak, When the Pope came to Cuba, this is where he held Mass. It's also where Obama came when he visited Cuba.

Cool
Even if they were for tourists, we still took a ton of pictures of the cars. Some were restored pretty nicely, some looked good from afar but if you got close you could see it was kinda duck taped together and had all kinds of parts that porbably shouldn't be in a car.

Classic Taxi
Our tour guide told us that the classic cars were for the tourists only. Not a lot of people owned classic cars, they own Russian and Japanese cars. The classic cars had been rusting in most people's yards until they figured out the tourists liked them. Interesting.

Museum of the Revolution
A lot of pictures from today are going to be taken from the bus. We covered a lot in 8 hours. We did get out a few times.

Best of Havana
We were on the "Best of Havana" tour. It was 8 hours long and covered our person-to-person requirements! Our guide was named Osmin and the driver was Eri.

Money line
The next stop after passing the visa and health screen was the money line. They asked only one person per group stand in line for money. We learned about the money in our Cuba seminar earlier in the week. The locals have their own money they call CUPs (Cuban Peso). CUPs all have people on them, like Che Guevara, and Cuenfuegos on them. The money for tourists is a CUC, (Convertible Peso). CUCs all have landmarks on them.

In Havana!
To get off the ship we had to pre-buy a visa. We bought ours through the cruise line. As Americans We were required to do 8 hours of person-to-person cultural exchange before we could just walk around by ourselves. We could do it ourselves but we'd have to meticulously document it and keep records for 5 years. We booked it through the cruise line instead. When we got off the ship we passed by doctors and nurses that were watching for sick people.They asked us not to take picturesof them. Interestingly, the nurses were wearing very short skirts and white lacy hose.

Tour time!
Once the ship stopped it was time to meet up with our tour. We had to meet in the theater and wait for our tour to leave.

Ultimate VIP tour pass
We hadn't had a chance to take a picture of our tour passes. Our tour also included lunch at Vernon's BBQ. We took a picture while we ate. We also helped the people from Germany order food.

Famous gold belt
You've probably seen the press conference. Elvis is wearing a baby blue suit at the International Hotel. A female reporter asks him about having a reputation of heing a shy down-home boy. Elvis looks at her and says, "I don't know what gives you that idea, I mean I've got the belt..." This is that belt. The International Jilton gave it to Elvis for setting an attendance record. Elvis had jewels set in it. They also showed us his Remote control, a ring he gave his girlfriend, Gennifer Flowers, and his money clip. BTW, the belt was shockingly small.

Elvis' clothes
They showed us one of Elvis'shirts. We couldn't touch it. I'm sure they thought someone would take a piece of it home with them. They also showed us a pair of his boots. Again, no touching!

Having fun!
Everyone else just held the microphone. Bill was the only one that had some fun with it.

Ultimate VIP tour
The regular tour ended in the trophy room. We got the Ultimate VIP Tour. They escorted us to a private lounge, gave us white gloves and we were allowed to hold Elvis' gold-plated microphone. It was heavy!

Gold & platinum records
In addition to these there were Elvis' Grammys, and the award for being one of the Ten Outstanding Young Men of the Nation in 1971, among other awards.