Recently in Mangalore....

Guess what happened today?!?! IT RAINED!!! It was the first time since I've gotten here and it was awesome!! There had been dark clouds for most of the day off and on and then we started hearing thunder around 6 pm....we checked outside and realized it was just the motorcycle shop next door. Bummer. Then about a half an hour later Mary, one of my roommates screams 'RAIN' at the top of her lungs and we all bolt outside and just soaked up the rain. It only lasted a few minutes but it was cooler rain than I expected.
I got back from Goa 2? days ago and it was fabulous :) Goa. A beautiful, very toursity part of India. It's kinda tourist season for the Indians right now and so there were plenty of them there. We were expecting to see a lot of white tourists there but alas, since it isn't really holiday time for the Americans/Europeans/Australians right now, we saw a few hippies but mostly just Indians. Saturday evening we all went to Easter Vigil mass at this outdoor church. It was huge and there were so many people there. It was a catholic service and it started at 11 pm. It was longer than I thought it would be...they let out around 2:30 am...but it was cool being there at night. The sky is always beautiful here so I loved that. They had a choir too and they used a keyboard to accompany us all. Haha it was great. Easter day we spent at the beach which was like out of a commercial. Ridiculous. However, since it was a BCA excursion, BCA pays (well they pay what we have already paid them) for everything except for any souveniors we want. So we decided to live it up. We all felt so pampered. We had food on the beach-with the sand under our feet-and I just got to sit there and read while soaking in the rays. Crazzzzy awesome! Ok so then Monday we went to 2 NGOS. One was called SCAN which stands for 'Stop Child Abuse Now'. They seem to be very proactive and are trying to bring a lot of awareness to Goa. They help adolescents mostly-some that are juvenile deliquents and some that are being abused. Then we went to an NGO that helps women who are being trafficked or were trafficked. They help get them out of the vicious cycle and back on their feet. They have a rehab center for them where they work and do laundry for big corporations. They looked like they were both doing a lot of good work. We ended the trip shopping for hippie clothes :) Hahahaha I plan on coming back dressed like hippie to the max! haha ohh yeah!
I finished my exams today too. We had one yesterday and 2 today....each 3 hours long...uggh. But they are done so I'm happy! Tomorrow I go to Vishwas all day and I think they're having a tea party for us. Then Saturday I go there in the morning and then at 7:45pm we all board the train for Bangalore for our last excursion. It's going to be crazy there, like always. We are visiting Mysore for a day, visiting a few NGOs one day and shopping another day. Then I embark on the trip up north until the end of April...I can't believe it's April already! So then I come back for one full day and then I'm leavin' on a jet plane :)