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I have always related to Alice, lost in her wonderland, stuck between the need to stay and the overwhelming desire to run into the great unknown. They say that travelling will allow you to ‘find’ yourself. I always just dismissed this as frivolous and overexaggerated. But nothing could ever prepare me for my visit to Cuba – my mother’s homeland and where I’d be spending the next two months in my own little wonderland. I was born in England, swaddled in the safety blanket of my home comforts. Yet, every year, my family would travel across the vast Atlantic. A journey that meant climbing onto the other branch of my family tree and leaving my comfort circle for a while. The stereotypical Cuba is a world of vintage cars and salsa bars, all encompassed in the thick wreaths of cigar smoke. But for me, Cuba was a kind, familiar face welcoming me with open arms. It was creeping over my brother’s shoulders as he played dominoes with the neighbours, a bottle of rum as the centrepiece of the table. It was playing on the street with the girl next door, admiring the natural landscape without one building getting in the way. Not one glimmer of metal in that vast sea of green - it was nature untouched. A timeless beauty that could never be recreated on page, and pictures never did it justice as much as I tried. On those long summer days, the familiar cadence of the rattling carriages of the underground or the stream of traffic outside my bedroom window felt like a distant memory. At the time, there was no WIFI in Cuba and I was greatly concerned for the wellbeing of my online Moshi Monster pets. Due to the Trade Embargo, American fast food restaurants such as McDonald’s were replaced by El Rapido and a refreshing can of coke was now TuKola. Amongst all this difference, however, I never expected to find pieces of home wherever I looked. They would pop up like breadcrumbs, carefully laid down for me to follow all the way back home. It was on a day trip to Havana when I first found one of these hidden gems. The crashing waves that threaten to drench any innocent passers-by on the boardwalk of the Malecon reminded me of seaside holidays back home. My father and I would confront the seawall like a scene from a spaghetti western, waiting for the sea to strike with its vicious spray. But it wasn’t until we reached the gigantic supermarket in Havana that I really hit the jackpot. Inside, I finally found a brand that I recognised: Kinder Bueno. I had never been so excited to see a chocolate bar in my entire life! Something so insignificant back home was now an absolute miracle. It really shows how much we take for granted in life. This isn’t the only time I have felt this childish excitement in finding a piece of home on my travels abroad. Even now, as a 21-year-old returning from her studies abroad. I always found myself yearning for those same home comforts. So tempting was it to book a flight home, just for a simple mince pie on the run up for Christmas. One day, after months of craving some Cadbury’s chocolate, we finally found it. Like pirates discovering buried treasure, my friends and I screamed in utter delight as we saw the sign for the Spanish equivalent of Poundland: “Dealz”. The amount of times I had walked past a Poundland in England and not thought twice. Yet there I was, absolutely thrilled with the thought of a £1 bar of chocolate. One that tasted just like home - priceless. So, when I was sat in my brother’s classic 60s car, (which loses its charm when baking in the unforgiving Cuban sun by the way) with a box of Kinder Bueno on my lap, perhaps all that time craving adventure was really a desire to find myself. When you travel about the great unknown, you never really expect to find home. You never expect to find yourself.