On my first trip to Cuba in 1994 (a business trip I could extend on my expense to a full week) I was so overwhelmed that at one point I simply fled exhausted to my hotel.  I was overwhelmed by everything  – by the decadent beauty of Havana, by the colonial Centro, by the crumbling 60s curves of Vedado and the posh villas of Miramar, by the ice cream and the unique design of Coppelia, by Socialismo tropicano and fleets of vintage cars. I was overwhelmed by the Caribbean sea spraying loads of saltwater on the Malecon and by celebrating there every evening the sunset with half of Havana (of course the rich man from Europe had the pleasure to pay for the rum). I was overwhelmed by the blandness of its food (siempre jamón y queso) and by smoking too many Partagas Romeo & Julia cigars (I even saw them being rolled on beautiful thighs in the old Partagas cigar factory in Havana’s Centro).  Above all I was overwhelmed by the life-coping eroticism of all Cubans I met. Photography was my therapy. As another therapy I went to Hemingway’s (not yet touristy) Bodeguita del Medio, ordered one Mojito after the other and read “The old Men and the Sea” in one Rutsch. I still felt young. – no wonder, I was just counting 23.