Too many Bibles?

We fail at posting. Yet, I guess all the teams could say that at one point or another.

A brief recap. Since our last post we have had school, a vacation, and other adventures around Bangalore.

We took another trip the Bible Society to pick up a Bible for Brian to take home. This trip prompted us to count the number of Bibles that we have just in our flat of the house. At the end we now have: Lauren: 2 full, 2 halves, Dexter: 3 full, 1 half, Brian: 3 full, Antje, 3 full, then adding the 2 full and 1 half that are here in the flat of Prem and Rita's. = 15 total. WOWZERS!

Asha Kiran isn't just a school but also a hostel for about 12 boys. Dexter and Brian wanted to spend as much time there as possible from the beginning of the trip. However, that plan failed until last week. Last week they spent one night, and they are spending the night again right now. (Whooo, girl's night in!). They play cricket with the boys, help them with their homework, play indoor games, and talk...anything further you'd have to ask the boys about...

The past two weeks of school have been really tough. We are now making sure the kids understand that we are leaving and they won't see us again after Friday. Some of them understand fully but others just wave at us and say "bye bye." Like they'll see us again Monday. There are certain kids we're each especially attached to, but we'll surely miss the entire school, it's not just a school but a family.

Friday night we took the train to Goa, which is on the Arabian Sea. It was awesome. When we first got there Saturday afternoon the first thing we did was head straight for the beach. We could see the beach from our rooms and walk right out onto a trail that with a 30 second walk we were on the beach, kicking off our shoes and running into the waves. Lauren made friends with three women who ended up just wanting to sell us jewelry, henna, and sarongs. We quickly realized what monsoon season does to the waves and headed for the pool. That evening we spent walking North along the beach, collecting shells and watching the locals fish. We met our friends again and I bought a few things while Lauren held off.
Dinner was our first expedition into the town of Colva, we ended up at this little hotel where the food was good but the service was lacking - I didn't get my food until we were standing up to leave.
On Saturday we adventured South along the beach. We started at about 10:30am. We walked for probably four hours, had lunch at a place called Funny's. Dexter had shark, which he said tasted a lot like a regular fish. Then we walked back to the hotel. At this point Lauren and I realize that our legs were scorched AND we had an hour walk back to the hotel. Lauren was already in pain about fifteen minutes into it and the sun was still fairly high in the sky. As soon as we got back to the hotel Lauren polished off the bottle of aloe we brought with us while I put more sunscreen on and jumped in the pool to cool down. The boys departed from us part of the way back to explore the main area of Colva. Once they got back we goofed off in the pool for a while then headed into town for dinner. We found a great place called Kentuckee, huge menu and the food was great.
Monday our original plan was to hire a taxi to go to another city and go to a sandal shop our guidebook told us about, but that became too expensive quickly. Plan B was to rent four scooters and drive there. BUT, three of the four of us didn't bring our driver's licenses to Goa. I thankfully had mine. We rented one scooter for the day and the others took turns exploring the back roads and villages around Colva while the two leftover played cards, read, and journaled in our favorite coffee shop (Coffee Day).
At one point Dex and I got up to 80 km/h. WHEEEEE!
Dex and I also ran out of petrol on another expedition and he pushed the scooter to the nearest general store. Apparently they rent you the scooter with little to no petrol in it.
We all had fun riding through jungles, fields, and football pitches. Trying not to get lost - and succeeding on that mission!

Other hi-lights of Goa:
Brian talking with some Christians at the general store before heading to dinner.
Finding two different puffer fish.
Brian body surfing.
Our friend the cat, who I named Sooty (he looked like he sat in a pile of soot, 101 dalmatians style).

On the train ride back Lauren and I got off to get snacks at a stop and decided to jump on the train while it was pulling away from the platform. It pulled away sooner and faster than we thought. Lauren made it perfectly fine and thought I was going to get in at the back door because I had the snacks in my arms. I decided to legitimately run for it and made it to the front door. Though Brian - who was inside the train and saw us running past the window thought I wasn't going to make it and Dex who was standing in the front door didn't think we'd make it at all. We did, safe and sound.

This is it from Team India.

We'll be home at about 5pm Seattle time on Saturday!

Love and blessings,
Antje and Team India