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photos
 The bright buildings reflected in the bus window as we entered Havana on the first day. |  An open-air vault in Alina's house, the central hostel. |  Fabric flowers decorate the terrace of Alina's house. |
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 Sunset in the interior courtyard of my hostel. |  An ornamental door leading to the open-air stairway to the back of Alina's house. |  The view of the neighboring courtyard at Alina's house. From the street, these buildings appear to be joined wall-to-wall; only once you enter do you realize the amount of open air internal space. |
 Two seabirds wheeling over the beach at Playa del Este. |  People watch a concert from their balconies overlooking Plaza Vieja. |  Rain patters off the tin roof of Alina's house. |
 Sunset on the windows across the street from Alina's house. |  A derelict old theater in our hostel neighborhood where we had dance lessons. One day, after it had rained, our lesson started late because the instructors were trying to clear the floor of water by pushing it toward a drain. |  The Cuban flag hung on a building near Parque Central. |
 Private light spills out into the public view. |  Architecture just before dusk in Plaza Vieja, Old Havana. |  Startled pigeons circle the Plaza de San Francisco, near the port of Havana. |
 |  A sliver of sunset on a building near my hostel. |  Early morning at the corner of Refugio and Industria. |
 A brightly lit hotel across the street from the capitol building. |  Street art in Havana. This particular artist had their own studio, but their work could be seen all over the city. |  A laundry line of all white clothes. White is appropriate for female practitioners of Santeria to wear. |
 Entering the center of Havana. |  Early morning on Refugio Street, where Alina's house is. |  The old house of Benito, a tobacco farmer who welcomes tourists for a brief trip through his barn and house. |
 Although the landscape is foreign, the tobacco plants themselves look much the same as the ones where I grew up in Maryland. |  Royal palm trees outside Cienfuegos. |  The sun setting down one street in Trinidad. |
 French-inspired architecture in Trinidad. Many French families fled the Haitian Revolution and settled in Cienfuegos and Trinidad. |  Dusk in the central plaza in Trinidad. |  An almost-opened door in Trinidad. |
 Barred, bright windows in Trinidad. |  Sunset in the cobblestone puddles in Trinidad. |  The Mural of Prehistory in Vinales is regularly maintained by locals who ascend with paint buckets on ropes. |
 A house in the countryside. This color palette and style of house (white with bright pastel accents, one story, garden) was very common in the rural areas we passed. |  A view from the lookout point an hour outside of Vinales. |  A more modern concrete house stands opposite the family's historic farmhouse. Benito, the owner of this tobacco farm, opened up the historic house for tourists. |
 Whether in the city or the countryside, lines of air-drying laundry were ubiquitous. |  A vibrant old farmhouse seen fleetingly from the bus. |  The underside of leaves in Parque Guanayara. |
 This fern-like plant closes its leaves when touched. |
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