Instead of posting a bunch of small, unsubstantial posts, here\u2019s a list of interesting tidbits I\u2019ve picked up while in Cuba.<\/p>\n
Throughout Havana, there are many monuments of war heroes and revolutionaries. Most are statues of the soldier on horseback, and the position of the horse says something about how and where the soldier died. If the horse is facing towards the ocean, he died outside of Cuba, thus across the ocean. If the horse is facing towards the Capitol, the soldier died on Cuban soil. The position of the horse\u2019s front two feet also matter; if they are both planted, the hero died of natural causes, if one foot is off the ground, the hero\u2019s cause of death is unknown, and if both of the horse\u2019s feet are off the ground, the hero died valiantly in battle.<\/p>\n
The license plates also have a system for determining more information about the vehicles they label. Every plate starts with a letter \u2013 B, M, P, K, T, etc. \u2013 followed by a series of numbers. We have yet to determine what each letter means, but a P signifies a privately owned vehicle, a B signifies a government-owned vehicle, a K signifies a vehicle for visiting diplomats or VIPs, and a T signifies a tourist rental car.<\/p>\n
It is illegal in Cuba to take pictures of uniformed guards, whether they\u2019re stationed on a street, in a park, or at a monument.<\/p>\n
The customary greeting in Cuba is a hug and kiss on one cheek.<\/p>\n
Children in elementary school wear white, collared shirts with red bottoms (shorts, pants, or skirts), while middle schoolers wear tan bottoms. Though education is free in Cuba, education is only mandatory up to age 14.<\/p>\n
Tips are not mandatory in all restaurants, as in the US. If a tip is expected, usually the restaurant will include it on the bill \u2013 usually only 10%. However, it\u2019s important to always have small change on you for bathroom attendants and the like.<\/p>\n
Cubans refer to papaya here as \u201cfruta bomba.\u201d Papaya is used instead as a slang term to refer to female genitalia.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Instead of posting a bunch of small, unsubstantial posts, here\u2019s a list of interesting tidbits I\u2019ve picked up while in Cuba. Throughout Havana, there are many monuments of war heroes and revolutionaries. Most are statues […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-524","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cuba"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/excrcl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/524","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/excrcl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/excrcl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/excrcl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/excrcl.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=524"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/excrcl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/524\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":525,"href":"https:\/\/excrcl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/524\/revisions\/525"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/excrcl.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=524"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/excrcl.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=524"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/excrcl.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=524"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}