When I teach travel writing classes I always tell students that, as part of their preparation before a trip, they should read the newspaper of the city they're going to. Not so much for the news, which is pretty much the same everywhere (corruption, fire, missing child), but for the advertisements, which can be extremely illuminating about the place.
Nicely proving my point the other day was the obituary page of the Miami Herald, which ran an ad for Funeraria Nacional, a company that offers burials in Cuba. "If the Cuba you remember still tugs at your heart, you can make your birthplace your final resting place."
