The image of modern Cuba is, in many respects, still frozen in the 1950s, with classic American cars, horse-drawn carriages, and colonial Spanish architecture. In a country where taxi drivers earn more than doctors, understanding Cuba is an exciting but endless mission. In the 1990s, after the fall of the Berlin Wall, Cuba plunged into crisis. After decades of subsidies from the Soviet Union amounting to 3 million dollars a day, the country's economy went into free fall. The ban on the US dollar was lifted, tourism gates opened, and the salaries of Cubans in contact with foreigners skyrocketed. At the Castro fortress, where the prosperity of the dollar clashes with communist austerity, arrived the American wife of a European energy advisor stationed in Havana, along with their two small children. Isadora Tatlin befriended Cubans from all social classes, organized dozens of parties—even Fidel Castro came for dinner!—and kept a daily journal. The result is a remarkable testimony of a unique period in Cuba's history, when the triumph of the revolution began to clash with the strong attraction of multinational consumerism.