Goa equals paradise. That is the impression we have gotten after staying here for a week. The long stretching beaches have pearl white sand and the people here are more relaxed and friendly than in Mumbai. The weather has been perfect and we have come to settle in an apartment that we now consider our home. With a spacious kitchen we have started to cook our own meals, we drive around on a scooter that we have rented and in the evenings we have had a Dutch guy, who we met in Bollywood, over for dinners.
With a self- decorated home, we did not even feel much homesick for Christmas. Instead of a traditional Norwegian Christmas meal, we picked the most expensive meals we could find, in a classy hotel restaurant by the beach. So our Christmas dinner consisted of lobster and beef, with a good Indian white wine, which cost no more than 800rupees/90kr per person. The wine was also good, and got us in the mood to see the Christmas parties that were going on at the beach. Here in India, Christmas starts at midnight on the 24th, so every one were counting down for the fireworks which filled the sky at midnight.
Tired as we were from the new impressions and the long day at the beach, we returned to our home to see how our new house pets (three small chickens we had saved from a guy who sold them for meat) were doing. Sadly enough, we discovered that “Plipp” was dying from cancer, and was being picked on by the others, so we had to put him to rest for good. “Plopp” was stolen from us the next night as we were asleep, and the last one, “Plomma” was still with us for another day, before he also gave up. It was sad seeing the life go out of his eyes as we were holding him and trying to get him to drink some water. It must have been heartache that took him, and it struck us as well when we had no birds running towards us when we came home. The lesson learned is that we were not yet fit for parenthood, so we decided that we would not take in the small goats, pigs and other chicken that run around here in Goa.
