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Study Abroad India

GOA

FRIDAY 8/6: Our plan for Goa was pretty much just to relax a bit before starting classes with Dr. Vijay in Bangalore. This morning, we woke up and had breakfast at the hotel restaurant, then tried to find an internet cafe. We walked to several places (all the while avoiding TONS of cow patties) that had “internet” signs, but they all said their internet was down. The beaches were much cleaner than in Mumbai, but the water was way too rough to get in. We spent some time taking goofy pictures of Steve acting girly, Valerie made friends with a dog that followed us around for awhile, and Sara’s camera got wet in the sea and stopped working. There were several tent-like beach huts in one area, but it didn’t really seem like anyone lived there. After walking along the beach in the direction of the hotel, we found what we thought was a path that would lead to the main road, but we ended up in someone’s backyard, where a huge herd of cattle were resting. Deciding that it was probably not the greatest idea to be trespassing, we walked back down the beach to the path we originally walked along. This wouldn’t have been such a big deal, but it was HOTTTTTTTTTT and we were thirsty! On the way back to the hotel, we found an internet cafe that actually had working internet!!!! I spent about an hour there sending emails and chatting online and it only cost me about 55 rupees (~$1.25). A block or so down from the internet cafe was a grocery store; I bought ice tea, mentos, a box of chocky krocky cereal, and some sort of Cadbury cookies…that stuff only lasted a few minutes 🙂 By the time I made it back to the hotel, I was DRENCHED in sweat (and looked really gross!). Sara, Steve, and I jumped in the pool and swam for an hour or two. Later on, we had dinner at the hotel and made friends with our waiter. All of us tried the local Goan alcohol, cashew feni….it’s meant to be sipped, but Steve took it as a shot….After dinner, we relaxed in our rooms (we watched India’s Got Talent and Whose Line Is It Anyway?) and did some laundry, then had a few drinks at the hotel before going out to a karaoke bar Steve found. We were the ONLY people at the bar…and there was no karaoke….but the owner was very friendly and gave each of us some flowers and hot peppers (which probably should’ve been nibbled on, but Steve ate the whole thing in one bite and instantly regretted his second bad decision of the day). Back at the hotel, I went to bed while the others stayed up and talked for awhile….at some point in time, the security guards came and shut both of our doors (our rooms were across the hall from each other), thus locking Steve out of the room we shared. Instead of knocking on the door to get in, Steve tried bad decision number 3 of the night, and climbed out a hallway window, onto a ledge, and around to our balcony, only to find that I had closed and locked the balcony doors.

SATURDAY 8/7: I think I was the only one who didn’t have too rough of a morning 🙂 At breakfast, there were A TON of people (we were pretty much the only people at the hotel the previous morning). We packed our bags and left them in storage at the hotel, then went back to the internet cafe and grocery store from the day before to get some snacks for our 16-hour train ride to Bangalore. There wasn’t enough time to do any sightseeing (we had wanted to rent scooters to ride to an old fort), so we went back to the hotel and sat around the lobby (and had our pictures taken by all of the businessmen from breakfast) until it was time to get a cab to take us to the train station. I’m really glad we left early for the train station…it was a pretty long ride and once we got there we didn’t really know what to do…..We didn’t have to check in or anything….but I knew we were on the right platform…we just didn’t know where to go from there! Once the train arrived, we had 4 minutes to ask someone where we were supposed to be and get there! Luckily, we were standing near our sleeper car and didn’t have to rush too much…As mentioned before, we were going to be on this train for 16 hours straight…..long story short, the 3-tier air-conditioned sleeper car was NOT what we imagined….I had been on several trains in Italy where there were several little compartments within each car that had doors that locked so you could sleep and have some privacy….but not in India….essentially, there were 96ish people crammed into each car (no comparments)…imagine a bunch of little cubicles with 3 planks of wood (each about 2 feet wide and 5.5 feet long) attached to the wall with about 2 feet of head room in between each plank….and the same arrangement right beside you (with a 10 inch aisle space in between bunks)….throw in a bunch of screaming babies, greasy feeling blankets, squat toilets, and food for sale that you can’t buy and you’ve got one hell of a journey! After the first few hours I was ready to jump off the train and walk to the nearest airport, but then I took some dramamine and passed out for 12 hours 🙂 When I woke up, we were almost to Bangalore to begin our adventure with Dr. Vijay!!!!