Hi Family and Friends,

Work is going well, Clay and I are moving right along on our work initiatives for our stay in India. Clay just promoted 3 people to supervisor/team lead positions which will really lighten his daily task load so he can focus on some of his other initiatives. I won’t bore you with details, but I also just accomplished a major milestone for my initiatives as well.

Yesterday we went to a house warming during the day where they served lunch in a traditional Indian way, on a banana leaf. We ate with our hands, Clay is getting quite good at that, but I’m still a rookie. We learned that the housewarming was planned on that particular day, because it was in line with the stars of the lady of the house.

Clay and I are starting to make a restaurant schedule upon our return to Lincoln, breakfast here, lunch there, dinner here, on this day, that day, etc. This is the food schedule our first week, Taco Inn (Sunday-strategic, it’s on the way home from the airport), Backyard Burgers (Monday-lunch with family), Valentino’s (Wednesday-lunch, no breakfast so we have extra room in the belly), El Toro (Thursday-dinner with some friends), Doozy’s (Thursday lunch-we have no date, let me know if anyone wants to join us), Chipotle (Friday lunch-we have no date, let me know if anyone wants to join us)] We are getting excited just talking about it. We are really looking forward to seeing all of you in December.

We had a great weekend in Goa. Our plan was to meet Goa Boy (this is how we affectionately referred to the guy who offered to let us stay in his beach house) at the Mumbai airport. He was going to fly with us to Goa and he would show us around for the weekend. This was confirmed the Friday before we left.

This is what really happened:
We arrived in Mumbai, no Goa Boy. We called him to find out if the plan was still on. He confirmed that it was, but he was still at work and would meet us there. So we boarded the plane and came up with a plan B. One of our friends in Hyderabad had told us about a place where they stayed in Goa called the Bambolin Resort (Clay deemed it the Bamboozal), so when we arrived in Goa I called the Bamboozal and made a reservation. We arranged for a taxi from the airport to the Bamboozal. Upon arrival it looked quite promising, the lobby was very luxurious and tropical, they greeted us with welcome fruit juice drinks. They had 2 rooms available so we went to take a peek. The rooms were quite disappointing and so was the price, but it was getting dark so we decided to suck it up for the evening and call Goa Boy for a plan the next day.
That evening we spent some time on the beach, had dinner at the resort, and listened to the “2 piece band” (a guy and a keyboard). We called Goa Boy and he said that he was on the 5:45am flight the next morning, would clean up and pick us up at 9:00am. We had hope but decided that we should have a plan C, just in case.

Saturday morning-No Goa Boy. So during Claire’s morning nap Clay and I headed Panjim (the nearest city, which also happens to be the capitol of Goa) to find an ATM. Panjim is the smallest capitol city in India with a population of 100,000 people. It is a really neat little town, the shops are run like little Indian shops (so we knew where to shop for everything), but it is laid out like a Portuguese village (or at least as how we would envision a Portuguese city). Plan C: Check out some hotels in the Lonely Planet and head to Colva to find a new hotel. I called a couple of places between Colva and Benalum and settled on a place called Furtado’s beach resort. The huts were simple, clean, and very affordable (we were initially turned off because they were so affordable we thought they would be horrible, but turned out to be great). They were 50 feet from the beach, had a great restaurant, great service, great ambiance, and really friendly people. We set up camp there for the next 2 nights.

Sunday we went for a boat ride to see “nolphins” (see translation below). The rest of the time we spent walking on the beach, floating in the ocean, and looking for “eshells” (translation below). It was very relaxing; we had a lovely time and hope to return to Goa before we leave India.

Claire’s new words:
Pun=Fun
Eshells=Seashells
Nolfin=Dolphin

New words in Spanish:
Nariz


Sincerely,Julianna Ehlers