Washington's top diplomat is coming to Havana on Friday to raise the Stars and Stripes over the newly opened U.S. Embassy, making a symbolically charged victory lap for the Obama administration's new policy of engagement with Cuba.
Ordinary Cubans will cheer, U.S. business executives will network and Secretary of State John Kerry will meet with Cuba's foreign minister, the country's Roman Catholic archbishop and a hand-picked group of dissidents.
Then the hard part begins.
Soon after Kerry heads home Friday evening, the Cuban and U.S. diplomats who negotiated the embassy reopening will launch full time into the next phase of detente: expanding economic ties between the two nations with measures like direct flights and mail service.