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Elizabeth Weintraub Embarks on a Trip to Cuba
Elizabeth Weintraub will appreciate classic cars during her trip to Cuba.
Usually at this time of year on Christmas Eve, I am not at home but instead am found in a warm tropical place somewhere around the world still working on Sacramento real estate. This year is different. For starters, I already enjoyed my 3-week wor-cation in Big Island this December and came back home a few days ago to tidy up business matters and am heading back out for a real vacation this time. This time a trip to Cuba with my husband. Plus, our house sitters are coming on Christmas Day to start caring for the cats.
Contrary to what people believe, travel has not yet opened up for a trip to Cuba. You still need to fit into one of the special 9 categories to travel to Cuba. You can’t just hop on a plane and yell Havana, here we come. And although there are now flights from LAX to Cuba, the jets fly only on Saturdays and you still need to qualify for the trip to Cuba. We’re flying a charter from Miami. Our travel agent is the same company that arranges Cuba trips for the California Auto Museum members. In fact, they have a trip planned for next May, in case you want to go, maybe before Cuban travel opens to all Americans.
We are not traveling with a group, though. We have our own Cuban guide who will drive us around the island for our people-to-people educational tours where we will learn how to roll cigars, most likely sample exciting rum cocktails and explore unique marine life via snorkeling in Trinidad. Among other pre-planned itineraries such as lunches at mansions, private tours of castles and family plantations, there is also the obligatory visit to the Hemingway House, which is not to be confused with the Hemingway House in Key West. Every day a new adventure awaits during our trip to Cuba.
While I am away, the Elizabeth Weintraub Team will carry on our real estate business in Sacramento. My phone will be forwarded to Barbara Dow. Further, it will be practically impossible for me to check email because, if I am lucky, I might have 30 minutes awarded now and then, which is not enough time to respond to every email. It means I will be pretty much unplugged for our trip to Cuba. Honestly, I have not been unplugged for a vacation since our 2009 December trip to Vietnam. And even then I was able to check email. Internet is a lot easier to obtain in Vietnam than in Cuba, though.
I have 100% confidence in my team. I could not say that in 2009 but I do believe it today. I am thanking my lucky stars to be surrounded by such brilliance. The ability to rely on my team allows me to focus on my Spanish but, having once upon a time built a home in Mexico, I already know the most important thing I need to say: Un vaso de vino blanco, por favor.
Feliz Navidad.
A Catalude at the Hemingway House in Key West
Polydactyl Rudolph Valentino at Hemingway House on Elizabeth Weintraub’s lap
Read carefully: tops, bottoms and shoes required for entrance. You don’t see a sign like that every day posted at a business, much less at a museum but hey, this is Key West. After spring break last year, the Hemingway House staff found it necessary to post such a notice at its ticketing desk. This house is such an attraction in Key West that tourists lined up down the street to get inside. Most of them were probably there solely to pet the 6-toed cats and couldn’t give a hoot about Hemingway or recall anything he wrote, if they even read his novels in the first place.
Hemingway House in Key West
They hold weddings at the Hemingway House. It doesn’t seem like a romantic way to start a future together, getting married at the home of a philanderer, much less a guy who had 4 wives and thought nothing of shooting enormous animals through the eyes and then mounting them on his wall, but what the heck. I guess we all romanticize history in our own ways.
Much of the home remains in its original condition, high ceilings, crown molding, hardwood and tiled floors. The first floor is laid out in kind of an odd manner in a circle, with its tiny kitchen and smallish bath at the back of the home. Each room contains some item pertaining to Hemingway such as artifacts, framed photographs, personal letters, war medals and books. The grand staircase leading to the second floor is surprisingly narrow, maybe 24-inches-wide at best. There is another building out back, and up those stairs to a large room is where the magic happened: Hemingway’s writing. A cat now nestles in his inbox. Many descendants of his cats remain on the property.
Black cats at Hemingway House
What I can humbly admit was the highlight of my visit and quite possibly one of the nicest things that has ever happened to me is when Rudolph Valentino, one of the polydactyl cats, jumped without an invitation into my lap. Many of the other cats in the household — about 45 are in residence — were ornery and grumpy, as you would be if somebody kept poking you and shoving a camera into your face 8 hours a day.
Rudoplph sat in my lap quietly, purring, inviting me to pet him, so I did what he wanted. Then, he stood up on my lap and began kneading my knees, extending and contracting his giant claws, which resulted in shredding my t-shirt. Still, I sat there and let him do it. This is what cats do to you.
Other tourists came by. I warned one little Asian girl who reached out to pet Rudolph that he bites. Another tourist stooped down to take my picture with her cellphone, yeah, right, my eyes flashed and I held out my hand to demand: Five bucks, please. Rudolph insisted I return both hands to petting him as one hand was no longer sufficient.
If you are wondering if the penny is indeed embedded by a post near the 65-foot pool, it is indeed.
Photos: Elizabeth Weintraub and Adam Weintraub
