Dy 42 (18 July): Is this really India?

In the morning we went to Panji which is the capital of Goa has been the capital of Goa since the 18th century and in the afternoon we went to Old Goa which was the 16th and 17th century capital.

In Panji, we took in a lot of the old administrative buildings, churches and the Portugesse styel architechture. Jorge used his Portugesse language skills to convince an older woman to give us a tour of her Portugesse style house in town; we sat down and spoke with her for a while about the town, etc.

In Old Goa, we saw a bunch more churches. These ones being a little more historically significant including Asia's largest.

We had dinner at a restaurant in Old Panji suggested by the older woman who's house Jorge managed to get us into. It was excellent. (Also for those interested in Indian food, Vindaloo dishes are a Goan specialty originally made with Port wine.)

Observations:
1) Language. I've been pretty surprised how generally useless English is India considering its the official language of the government. It seems like somewhere around 50% of people know a few words, whereas less than 25% can get close to holding a conversation in it. Its even more surprising when you realize that English is the language used to talk to people from other states since the language is different between Maharashta (where Bombay is) and Goa.
2) Portugese citizenship. A man we met today while in Old Goa told us that Goans are eligible for Portugese passports if they were born before 1961 and their kids are eligble by lineage.
3) Goans abroad. We also learned from the man who told us about the Portugese citizenship that there are more Goans abroad than any other Indians, partially because they can travel easier with EU citizenship. He actually lived in Dubai and was only going sightseeing in Goa for the benefit of his children who never lived in Goa. The older woman who's house we saw had a daughter who lived in Dubai as well. A big motivation for Goans doing so is money, since many of them, understanably would rather live in a tropical paradise on a beach where everything is very cheap for them when they come back.
4) Even locals watch the food they eat. The older lady (who was clearly upper caste or at least well to do) told us that particularly during the Monsoon she is careful with which restaurants she goes to and only drinks not only mineral water, but name-brand mineral water.
5) In India, you can file law suits for an amount of only 5 Rs (or less than 12 cents in USD), but the administrative fee when doing so is 1 Rs (or about 2 cents in USD). I can hardly imagine its worth anyone's time to do so, but that's what the computer at the Goa Branch of the High Court of Bombay said on it. It was in English, so unless there was something else that we missed, its ture.
6) Body language. Body language in India is differnet than what is used in most English speaking countries. For 'yes' instead of nodding up and down, you tilt your head at a diagonal moving your chin in a 'J'; this looks a lot like a combo of what I'm used to for 'yes' and for 'no' (side-to-side shaking of the head.) For no, you put up your right hand with fingers extended and turn it. Figure out these body language cues has actually been really helpful in communicating with people.