My dad visited Cuba toward the beginning of the 21st century, because he'd always wanted to go, because he was a big Hemingway fan. So art struck in a similar but different way than for you. :-)

He was captivated by the experience and talked about it for the rest of his life. He took advantage of the fact that he was visiting Mexico before he booked his trip to Cuba. The Cuban regime at that time was deliberately not stamping American passports, so is to not get US citizens in trouble with the US government.

Even though Dad was a staunch conservative and loyal Republican, he never understood why we singled out Cuba for punishing sanctions and embargoes.

And didn't make sense to him then, and it doesn't make sense to me now.

Qatar, just to name one nation in recent headlines, has a human rights record at least as bad as Cuba's, yet we treat Qatar as an honored ally and economic partner.

There's just no sense to it.