Love is All Around

I have 20 minutes before heading to work to write about Goa, which doesn't seem like enough time. So check back as I will probably need to write more about our awesome weekend!!

If you have seen the movie "The Beach," then you can picture the area where Goa is located. OK, I didn't see any Leonardo DiCaprio look alikes there and there were no lagoons or crazy sharks or anything like that but it was very lush and beautiful. Goa is located on the the west coast of India on the Arabian Sea. Jill (also from Deloitte), Kathryn and I arrived at the airport and ran into two guys, Andy and Chris, also from Deloitte, which worked out well for the weekend. When we arrived in Goa, our driver picked us up and immediately started blasting this Indian type techno music. It's impossible to describe the sound, but there was a lot of drum beats and chanting and the music felt exactly how it looked outside - sunny, sparkling water, green trees and flowers everywhere driving on the road, accented with lots of people (some of whom we almost took out driving!), cows, bicylces, colorful shops and mopeds. I felt quite happy and relaxed as we sped around the winding road for 45 minutes to the hotel.

We stayed at La Calypso Paradiso, right on the beach. Fortunately, our rooms were also right on an Italian restaurant, Bella Ciao. Everyone was so excited for pizza and beer!! We all sat and talked for several hours on the deck, looking out at the sea and eventually watching the sunset. It was warm, but a wonderful breeze was blowing off the water, so it felt perfect. After our late lunch, we all showered up - this was interesting for Jill and I, as we were sharing a room where the shower had no door (it had broken). So the bathroom became a splashy, swampy mess. Very fun. We got in a car and drove down basically this "dune buggy" road, crossed a scary bridge that felt like a roller coaster, and arrived at Ingo's Saturday Night Bazaar - a huge market with hundreds of merchants, a band, drinks and food and thousands of people from all over the world. I didn't feel like shopping at all, and it was somewhat overwhelming to even look in the tents because there was so much merchandise. But it was fun to people watch and walk around. A man was selling recorders and could play the first 10 or so notes of the "Titanic" song, which we heard about 100 times while we were there. We left around 930 and headed back to La Calypso. There we went down to a cabana on the beach and ordered nightcaps - I had a "mojito" (it was pronounced with a hard j sound there). We had company as well, as some stray kittens cruised by us and a stray dog came up, dug a hole and curled up in the sand right next to us. But the most fun visitor was a man in a cowboy hat who came up and announced he would sing "Love is all around by wet wet wet." He actually did very well with the words and sounded pretty good, however I think we all still found it quite funny that we were being serenaded and had a hard time keeping our composure.
ok, I must head to the office - part II and pictures to come!