Communicate in English and dollar bills. The same is true in the nearby Plaza and the Ingleterra and Nationale hotels. This, of course, is tourist Havana. B along with the beachfront tourist palaces of Veradero, it has become a thriving dollar-driven service economy that helps sustain Castro's socialist dreams and schemes. The cracks in the embargo are so obvious that although Cubans complain about it as an inconvenience, they also laugh at its relative ineffectiveness.
American products are everywhere.
Flip on a computer in a Cuban ministry and the screen lights up with Microsoft Windows 95. There are no McDonalds, but you can swim in Coca Cola. This is not you grandfather's Havana, but it isn't your father's either, and it certainly isn't the one Sen. Jesse Helms, Castro's nemesis, wishes it was.