That afternoon and evening we spent with a family whose head was nick-named "barrilito" Almost everyone in Cuba had a nick-name) due to his barrel-like girth and was an auto mechanics customer of my old man Luis in the island. I was surprised to see him in Miami, and hadn't realized that he had left Cuba about a year before us. I had ham slices that his wife gave me (kind of a newly-arrived-Cuban ritual, I guess). I was amazed at the size of the bananas. We ate dinner there and were driven back by barrilito to the pink boarding house hotel.

Each room in the boarding house had one main bed and a bunk bed. I took the top bunk above my brother Luisito, Caridad, being two years old, slept with my parents, and the next morning awoke to see the sunrise through the window. I remember thinking to myself "I can't believe that I'm here". It felt as if my prior life in Cuba had only been a dream. Coincidentally, a Google Earth check of the site reveals that it's not there anymore. Sad...

That day, barrilito picked us up and after dropping my mother off at his house, were driven by him around downtown Miami, then went to a shopping center somewhere in the northwest side, which I found amazing. We went into a supermarket- a new experience for me- and was stunned by all the goods but specially by the variety of olives. In Cuba, olives would come in from Spain only during Christmas (back before Fidel took that away) and of only one type, with pits. The aisle that I walked past as I followed my old man Luis and barrilito had rows of jars of cocktail olives, stuffed olives, big olives, small olives, pitted olives, slice d olives, salad olives, black olives. Olives all over the place, all different. In different size jars! I stopped to look at all those olives and thought coñoo!. It was like in "Moscow On The Hudson" when Robin William's Russian defector character went in a supermarket and as he walked walked past the coffee aisle, dropped to the floor hyperventilating (well, except for the dropping and hyperventilating).

We were to board a plane to Newark, New Jersey that night at 10:00 pm, so we again had dinner in barrilito's house and watched the Batman TV show for the first time (...na-na-na-na-na-na, na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na, Batmaaaan...). Having been a comic book fan for years, I was struck by how ridiculously wimpy Adam West looked in that outfit.

Later than night, back in MIA, I saw through one of their big windows into the plane that were were going to board. It was one of those scary, feline, loud whisper jets that I had been gaga about at the prior afternoons from the north side of the runway, during my chewing gum gluttonial.

And off we were. Realizing now that the US east coast is bows to the west somewhat, I now know that flights from Florida to the northeast travel temporarily over the Atlantic Ocean. And at 11:00 at night everything was very dark outside of the plane for a long time. I was on the left side, and would look out of the window to the west every once in a while to see if we were going to land already. I kept thinking and reassuring myself that a "sky hook" was holding us aloft.

Suddenly, I saw some lights in the distance. "Ya casi llegamos"... I thought to myself. I saw those City lights come and pass. "Mierda", I thought, and kept the sky hook thought alive. Then another city... passed. Then more and more cities appeared. Washington?, Baltimore?, Philadelphia? Trenton? Then lights were everywhere. We're finally going to land, I thought, after hearing a mechanical sound on the outside and looking out of the window to see the wing flaps rise. The plane was all lit up then. It touched down with a screech and breaked with the roar of reverse jets. The prop plane from Cuba was smoother in the landing, but a little bouncy during flight. I followed the line out of the plane with my parents and stepped outside... bang! the icy cold hit my face. Another coño! flashed in my mind. There was no concourse, so we walked into the open.

Once inside, we were on our own for a while without English. As my parents were struggling with a non-Spanish speaking airport person, out of the sky drops this woman that was bilingual. Some Cuban woman with blonde hair blue dress pants and a black leather jacket. She translated for us and even helped us with a taxi driver. It seems as if the dates were crossed as to when we were arriving (Saturday at 2:00 am, as opposed to Friday at 2:00 am.), so no one was there to receive us. I remember the taxi driver's face when my mother, going through her black address book, produced Salvador's and Pura's address in Lawrence, Mass. That black man's eyes widened. Masachussetts...! he says. Hell we didn't know what the hell Mass was anyway. I could have been a nearby address. The woman translator pointed that out ("noo... muchacha... Massachusetts es muy lejos...") so my mother produced another one. Lisardo Rios, and it was located just on the southwest side of the Newark runways, according to the cabbie.

I remember us getting to your apartment and meeting you and Lee (in your pajamas) for the first time. Y ou all may not remember this but I do.

A couple of hours later Dario, Hilda and Sergio and Coloma (I think they were there...) picked us up and rode us to Dover. What a weird ride that was up Route 3. We arrived at Dario's house in Dover and there was cafe con leche, toast and butter, jelly, cream cheese. You know... Cuban breakfas, although it was the first time that I had fruit jelly. It was around 4:00 am. I ate and went to sleep.

Later on in the day, everybody came to see us. It was cool to see all those relatives (I admit that I haven't seen most of them for years). I remember you all stepping out of the Ford Fairlane down in the street below. It was a great day. Dover looked like what I had always imagined a town in El Norte would look like. And the fact that we came in around Christmas made it all the grander.

My grandfather Vicente remained in Cuba temporarily and would arrive a few weeks after us.

The rest, well, I will again be inspired to write about it some other time.

By the way... some two weeks after our arrival, "Journey To The Center Of The Earth” was aired on NYABC television! I watched it while still living in Dario's house and ate it with a spoon, commercials and all, neither of which I understood.

But man... what eye candy it was even in black and white!

Jorge