Week 8 – 9/11/16 – 15/11/16

I had the best of intentions to go on holidays and not throw my quitting sugar out the window completely, and did a pretty good job when transiting through Canada although my in-flight meals had sauces and I had a tonic with my vodka rather than soda but small slips and mid-air doesn’t really count does it? I had a few hours to kill in Toronto so decided to do a fun mix of breakfast for dinner, so had some eggs on toast with a vodka soda and a very horrible coffee. I had forgotten how different our coffees are to others around the world, when I ordered my coffee to go with soy milk and the soy milk came separately I was surprised but realised it’s because I am used to our coffee making standard which is based around milk whereas the America’s have coffee based coffee with a dash of milk. But I was still staying on the limiting sugar track pretty well.

Then I got to Cuba, and well there was fruit at breakfast, fruit at lunch and who knows if the sauces of the food I had contained sugar, then dinner had more sauces with no doubt sugar in it and well I was in Cuba so I had a Mojito. Then with my dinner and show a glass of sparkling wine and rum and coke was included, the sparkling wine had a strawberry in the bottom of the glass and well coke is the bringer of all sugar. My dinner also came with dessert, mainly cheese but also a nice slice of some sort. When they were bringing around everyone’s rum and coke they put a small bottle of coke in front of me and I figured they would just come and put a shot of rum in each person’s glass but then they come around and put a bottle of it on everyone’s table or one bottle per group booked. As I was by myself I had this small bottle of rum to myself so there as a decision to be made I had already had a Mojito and sparkling wine and was feeling it, do I need another alcoholic drink or should I just drink the coke and pocket the rum? Of course, I pocketed the rum and just drank the coke. Score!!! But alas all my good intentions of keeping away from American sugary crap was foiled by that coke.

The next day lunch was a bit more sugarless with a huge piece of grilled fish, banana chips (a new favourite) and rice but I did opt for a Mojito because hey I am on holidays and deserve it. After lunch, I was left to my own devices and have had a bottle of water with me every day so drank that to refuel until I met a lovely Cuban man named Ariel (I don’t know if that is how to spell it but he said it was like the mermaid). Ariel took me to Che Guevara’s bar where he lived above and would drink downstairs and discuss all things revolution, he also told me of Che’s favourite drink and insisted on me trying it not this was grenadine (all sugar), non-alcoholic blue curacao ( or what looked like it and it was made clear there was no alcohol as Che didn’t drink, all sugar), and water over ice so basically a non-alcoholic tutti fruity. It was tasty and refreshing but a lot of sugar.

I overslept breakfast which was disappointing as I was looking forward to seeing what would be on offer at this casa ( I had moved casa’s) but alas I preferred the sleep. I was then met with my roommate for the next week whilst on the boat and we decided to go exploring the city as she had only just arrived and I didn’t have anything particular in mind for my day except seeing if I had missed anything. We stopped to get a coffee but as it was lunch time opted for some food, what I wanted which was breakfast like wasn’t available so I joined by roomie Anna for some fried chicken which I am sure had sugar but I could be making ill assumptions, I did have a coffee but Anna opted for a Mojito, after we continued exploring some more we decided it was too hot and we need another drink pit stop I opted for the Mojito this time with Anna getting a beer.

We then headed to back to the Casa to drop our souvenirs off and ended up just chilling for the rest of the afternoon as we had a dinner planned as part of our sailing adventure with our fellow sailors as well as an orientation tour of Havana. Dinner was good as I was able to limit my sugar by having a grilled fish which came with rice and salad as sides, but I did have a mojito so there’s all the sugar in my life at the moment. I’m on holidays so don’t feel bad about having any of the sugar especially when mixed in cocktails and when in Cuba need to have Mojitos.

Up and at it early the next day, unfortunately, breakfast wasn’t being served as early as we were up but we were eventually able to have some eggs, toast, fruit (should be still off fruit but will start that again when I get back home) and a small amount of coffee. We then headed to the bus to get on the road to Cienfuegos where we will be getting on the catamaran and going sailing.