After coming back from a three weeks trip to Cuba, I have so much to say and it’s all contradictory. The ideals that once freed it from dictatorship, now hold it captive in a time capsule. Nowhere have I seen such vibrance and spirit with music and dance literally everywhere you look. With ingredients from all over the world, Cuba mixed the most culturally rich cocktail I’ve ever proverbially drunk. But, the supermarket shelfs are empty except for a never-ending supply of government-produced Havana Rum, a brand name stolen from a family that had to flee from the regime. Beautiful old pre-cold war American automobiles are parked next to post-cold war Russian Ladas. But underneath all that shiny chrome runs a Chinese motor, that is… if it runs at all. After 2016 when Obama changed the status quo on the economic embargoes that have plunged Cuba back in time, many travellers, myself included, wanted to visit Cuba before it forever changes. Now I wish that change to come yesterday so it’s beautiful people can enjoy and have excess to all the things we have and are taken for granted for all these years. The things that give us the Luxury and time to wonder about ideals instead of struggling to survive. So what better way to end this rant than with some photos and, to me, the most contradictory and ironic quote of El Comandante, Fidel Castro himself; A revolution is a struggle to the death between the future and the past.