Goaaaaaaaaaa

Ah Goa, what can I say?  We study abroadians had a splendid time beach hopping, staying in guest houses, and taking the edge off our white skin :) Fun fact: in the US, everyone is obsessed with getting tan, but here in India, no one whats to get tan!  The fairer you are, the better! Haha, I guess the grass is always greener on the other side.

Beach!

After our chill couple of days in Arambol Beach, we packed up and moved down to Baga Beach.  Baga is known to be touristy and a bit crazy :)  We stayed in a guest house right behind this little beach shack called Russel's.

Russel and his wife, Julie, are from Goa and runs this beach shack restaurant.  They have one son, Rio, who is 5...SO CUTE!  Russel was super chill and had three earrings in one hole on one ear - in case you wanted to know, that is the first thing I noticed about him because I remember thinking "Man, his hole is is going to pull like crazy."  Anyways, he had a crew of young guys who worked in the kitchen as seasonal workers, so we got to hang out with them as well.  Basically, my days consisted of:

• Get up at 7:30am, run on the beach
• Eat a nice breakfast with the others
• Walk the main road, rent a scooter, or some other town activity
• Read my book (Just finished Banker to the Poor by Mohammad Yunus...it's a good one!) or write in my journal by the beach
• Swim in the ocean
• Hang out with the guys at Russel's at night, talk about life and other such activities

So fun!  It was amazing to talk with the other study abroadians about their experiences in India.  We had a list of conversation starters with topics that our professors wanted us to discuss, so that made for some interesting and in depth conversations.

By the way, I bought a straw sun hat in Baga, so I felt so beach-like when I walked around with my hat and big sunglasses.

Another piece of interesting news: Leanna and Elly shaved their heads during this trip!  Leanna has been talking about doing it forever and Elly thought it was a good idea, so they both decided to just do it.  We went to this old man who ran a barber shop, and he did it with an old-school blade shaver and charged just Rs. 100 ($2)!  Now, we have two baldies in the group ;-)

After Baga, we headed further south to Kolva beach.  This beach was more quiet and had the most beautiful white sand.  Morning runs on the beach, life discussions, and trying Goan food continued to fill up our time.  On our last night, we found this resturant/bar that was doing kareoke!  We ended up being the only Americans there pretty much...everyone else was British.  Ha.  All six of us sang some great hits like Journey's Don't Stop Believing and Smash Mouth' All-Star (those songs were picked because we all knew the words to those ones!).  It was a super fun way to end our trip together...On Wednesday, we officially split up to go our separate ways :( So sad!  But now, I'm back in Delhi, ready to go to my cousin's wedding.  So long, Goa!

Ricky Bobby, me and Jaga...super goofy cooks at Russels.

Jin-Jin, another goofy guy in the Russel's cooking brigade.

A beach view

The whole gang! From left to right: Julie, Rio, me, Jin-Jin, Jaga (crossing his arms), Nagesh, Elise, Elly, Jeff, Jenae, Leanna, Ricky Bobby