Trains are cool. Sleeper trains are set up so that you have a bench seat for three people, and a person can sleep on the bench. The back of the bench can be raised up on a ledge, and that makes a second bed. And there's a top bunk that looks like a plane's luggage compartment that the third person from the seat to sleep on. It's a pretty nice setup. However, 28 hours worth of train is just a lot.
The beach is awesome. 6 of us stayed in beach huts that were directly on the beach. They were made out of palm and bamboo, and they overlooked the ocean. It's off-season in Goa, however, so, to conserve money, they cut back on things. Like peanut butter and electricity. Things like that “aren't in season” right now. But that was okay, too. We couldn't charge our phones or cameras, but it was kind of like beach camping. Friday night, we all stayed up late playing jenga by candlelight with the hotel staff and a British couple that's been married twenty-some years and comes to Goa regularly.
The ocean was nice. It was shockingly warm compared to any American ocean I've been in, and it was more alive, too. Everywhere we walked, there were crabs scuttling along or some other sea life. When tide went out, we went to pick up seashells... and we had to be careful not to get the ones with hermit crabs or sea slugs in them (I tried to convince some of the hermit crabs to trade me because they had all the coolest shells, but for some reason, they weren't up for that). And there were starfish everywhere along the beach. I got a bunch of seashells to bring home despite that. We went swimming a few times, and we all got a little sunburnt and a little more tan.
The downside of the ocean was that there were jellyfish. Thousands of them, literally. The town we stayed at, Benaulim, is a big fishing town (all of Goa is actually into fish), so jellyfish get caught in nets a little bit out to sea and die, and then they're washed inland. And then they get partially buried in the sand in the water, so when you go out swimming, you step on them. Usually, they're dead enough to not sting you, so we all stepped on some impotent ones. Sometimes, they still pack a punch. Izzy got stung twice, and I got stung once at least. When she got stung, she said they were kind of painful like wasp stings or something similar. The time I got stung, I was not even in the water... I was walking along the beach at low tide early in the morning, and we could see the jellyfish in the sand where the water would be when the tide came in. And I avoided all the big pieces, but I stepped on a little invisible chunk of tentacle and didn't notice or think anything of it. And about three steps later, my leg was numb to my knee. It was a weird feeling.
We went on a dolphin-watching boat. The boat held about 15 people and was basically just a little motorboat. Dolphins here do not look like our dolphins. When I have internet, I'm going to look them up. They have longer noses, funny shaped dorsal fins, and they're not completely grey. I was a little surprised when one popped out of the water because it wasn't at all what I expected. The boat ride was nice. We never got out of sight of shore, because you don't really have to to see the dolphins.
While I was in Turkey this summer, I found a pair of pants that look like what Princess Jasmine wears in Aladdin, disney-style. I bought them for $20. After wearing them a few times and realizing that they are the most amazing pants ever, I wished I had gotten more pairs of these pants. I spent all summer hoping to find the pants in India so that I could get more of them. And, I spent my first two months in India looking everywhere and not finding any of them. I found them in Goa: they're called Ali Baba pants. And, acknowledging that I would have been willing to buy another pair in Turkey for $20, I decided the only thing to do would be to buy $20 worth of Indian pants. Do you know how many pairs of pants you can get for $20 in India? I do. I ended up paying about $30 actually, but I got 8 pairs of pants. And they're awesome. And I can't feel too bad about spending that much money on pants, because two nights of hotel cost $12.
So, now that our Goa expedition is over, we're getting to crunch time in our trip. We have two weeks of class, and then we go to the Mahabaleshwa Resort for a conference where we have to present our independent study projects. I think that means I have to play some violin... oh, joy. After that, we have half a week of classes before we leave on our two week vacation – mine is mostly planned... kind of. And once those two weeks of vacation are over, we have two weeks of classes, and then we fly home (except about half of ACM is staying later to tour India again). So I'll be home in just over a month and a half. It's nice to be past the halfway point.
Anyway, we rode a train back. The train went through the jungle, and there were some amazing views before night set in. The train left Goa (Madgaon Station) at 3:50pm. It got to Pune at 3:30am. Since it took 14 hours to get from Pune to Goa, we were expecting to get back at about 6am. We didn't. So none of our families were expecting us home this morning and we all had to figure out a new game plan. A lot of people bunked at one house close to ACM, and a couple of us just came on to ACM at 4 in the morning, jumped the fence, and slept the rest of the night in the classroom. So that's where I am now, waiting for class to start.
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