How I did it: Went with a school group on behalf of a "Jewish humanitarian group", so we gave away clothes and medicine and visited a synagogue one day...our professor took care of the visas and stuff, but we went through ABC charters, flying through Miami.

Lessons & tips:

• I felt guity being a tourist there. They arranged for us to get tourist deals at really nice restaurants, which fed us a lot (too much) food. This one night we were each served a big plate of pasta and a whole pizza, and I felt really guilty eating it when I knew there were people starving outside. Seeing how much better off tourists lived seemed to defeat the purpose of socialism.
• The people there don't have much, and we got begged a lot for things as small as a pencil. Most of the people seemed well-intentioned, but some were really persistent and, especially when I didn't have anything to give, it made me uncomfortable.
• People make commissions bringing tourists into bars, so the first night we got talked into going to a bar, and the guy who took us there ordered overpriced drinks for us, himself, and for his girlfriend and then expected us to pay. So watch out.
• That said, almost everyone was really friendly and high-spirited.
• The beaches are beautiful.

Mar 23, 02:35PM PDT | 0 comments