My New Hometown:

Communist Cuba
 

My first night in Cuba, this is the sunset I got to see

  
  Just a beach...but wonderful water.  
 

On a snorkeling adventure, I ran into this fella.

  
  Some more of the coast line.  
 

The dog (Sam) on Christmas Mourning.

  
  Mom and Pop before we open presents.  Be sure to compliment them on their new Thai silk PJs tailored for them during their most recent trip to Asia.  
 

Grandma opening a present.

  
  Great Aunt Audrey doing the same.  
 

Grandma viewing the family photo album she received from Vicky.

  
  It's Christmas morning, and this was the temperature (I bet it wasn't that warm wherever you were!).  Since it was so nice, we went out on some boats and went snorkeling.  
 

We found these 5 conchs.  One for everyone! (Mom, Dad, Grandma, GAA, and myself).

  
  Well this is a picture of the prize conch I found.  My mom is holding the animal that actually lives inside these shells.  We ate him for dinner :-)  
 

While we were out on the boats, we got to witness a Cuban boat travel through the Bay.

  
  So how/why was a Cuban boat in American controlled waters?  Well this picture shows the mouth of Guantanamo.  The Cubans still have boats come in and out of here...they still trade with other countries.  
 

This is a very 'friendly' iguana.  He came within a few feet of us (very frightening).  We couldn't scare him away...tried popping him with my towel and stuff.  Luckily Wonder Dog (Sam) was with us; when we untied her, she made that iguana run so fast that it looked like it's feet never touched the ground.

  
  Here's me at the famous 'Gator Den' with my father (left) and the owner, Art (right).  Art is my father's boss.

You can read an article the Alligator did on the Gator Den: here

  
 

This is Art's boat, the 'Gator Freighter'.  My mom is standing to the right.

  
  So in Cuba, the turkey buzzards are an endangered species and they need to be fed.  The idea here is that they want you to drive reeeealy slow.  Hopefully you'll go slow enough that the birds can come eat you and survive.  
 

These are some boats that the Cubans use to get to the American side of Cuba.  It's pretty amazing to see how hard they'll try.

  
  Just some Cuban landscape.  
 

So I was told that this is the greenest part of the year.  I think my camera messed up; it makes all of the lush green meadows look like brown dirt.  Wait, maybe it is just brown dirt and there's no green at all?

  
This is a banana rat.  It's the size of a large cat...very large cat.
These things are all over the island.  They're kinda scary, why would someone want one as a pet?
Again, notice how 'green' it is.

Well at the top are some windmills that they're building to generate power.  Down at the very bottom of the picture is the golf course.  It doesn't really stand out, the only reason you know it's there is because the grass is much smoother...still brown though.  When you play golf, you have to pick up your ball, place it on some Astroturf and then swing. I imagine that everyone's got a pretty high handicap there; I mean you've got to take a drop every swing.
Well, this place is too arid for deer.  So a deer-xing sign would not work well.  Some genius had the bright idea to make iguana-xing signs to slow motorists.