– Turn your house into a love pad
This one’s for those already living together. Just like you decorate your house for Christmas, Diwali or New Year’s Eve, decorate it for Valentine’s Day with romantic motifs. Well, you’ve got to wake up with love, so put heart shapes on pillows and sheets, cut out different coloured hearts and place them around the house, use light perfumed candles in the evening, make a long, never-ending playlist of favourite love songs to be played all day, and make yourselves a romantic dinner with champagne. Then dim the lights, hold hands and watch a romantic movie late into the night, and at midnight segue into lust…
– Go for a couple massage
There are so many spas and massage salons all over Goa these days, you’ll be spoilt for choice. But this is one of those once-a-year special days, so spoil yourselves and go in for an extravagant one at one of the more exclusive spas. They conveniently have couple rooms, and you can have it done with chocolate, Champagne, and so many other things.
– Go for a night time beach stroll
I recommend you do this on the Sinquerim-Baga beach stretch, which has more than 200 shacks and is quite safe. Holding hands, start at sunset and watch the fabulous colours of the evening sky. There’s going to be a full moon this weekend, so the sands will be sparkling as will the surf, which washes on to the shore, besides of course the breaking waves. You can stop for a drink or two at a shack on the way, or go a little inland for some great food at one of the beachside restaurants and get back on to the beach. There are plenty of non-crowded areas where you can relax on the sand. You might even decide to make it an all-night affair and do the whole 9-km stretch, finishing by sunrise on Feb. 15. I suggest you start at the Baga end and head for hearty buffet breakfast at Vivanta by Taj Fort Aguada. You can have Sex on the Beach, but only in the form of a cocktail!
– Go Goan!
I don’t mean go to a Goan dine’n’dance. I’m talking old-style romance here. Do as they did in the old days, when you professed your love for each other by making a private visit to the church, kneeling down in the front row and offering a prayer together to the Virgin Mary. Alternatively, the Hindus went to a temple and did approximately the same thing. Everlasting love after all is a very serious thing, not to be decided as you shake your ass in a disco.
– Spend the weekend on a houseboat
Yes, you can hire a houseboat for the weekend and simply float around. There are a few houseboats available on the Chapora river. They come with a bedroom and living room, besides the deck and a kitchen with a small staff to take care of all your needs. The lovely scenery all around is very romantic. Britney Spears spent one of her honeymoons on a houseboat. It’s just the two of you sailing on a boat going nowhere…
– Long-distance is best…
Separation and distance always makes the heart grow fonder. So if you’re going to be far apart this V-Day, don’t worry, you can still have the best, most romantic Valentine’s Day ever! See, there’s SMSes, emails, Whatsapp, Skype and all those other things on the phone and net through which you can send tenderly written, customized romantic messages, poems, love songs, photos, etc. And then of course there’s video chat, which means you can watch each other as you speak, doing whatever it is you desire. Goa Streets is a family newspaper, so I’ll stop there. Wink. Wink.
– Go to the movies
Watching movies curled up together in a dark movie hall is one of the oldest modern ways of romance. It’s known as the magic of the movies. Try and get two seats in the last row, cuddle up, feel the breath turning all steamy, and watch a nice love story unwind on the big screen.
– Bring on the Champagne and Caviar
A special day calls for special measures. There’s nothing like a bottle of Champagne to liven up the mood. Pair it with some delectable food which you can cook together – but only if you know how to cook. Or you can always get something parceled and warm it up. The easiest way to have Caviar is to dump some of it in the Champagne and scoop or drink it. Or you can have some oysters poached in the sparkling wine along with the Caviar. Should get you all piped up for some frenetic activity in between the sheets afterwards.
– Do some sky-gazing
Have you ever seen Venus, the planet of love? No? It’s known as the morning star and is brightly visible in the eastern morning sky, the direction where the sun rises, in the mornings these days, even till 7 am. If you’re staying somewhere in the Goan countryside, spend the night watching the sky for some of the 88 constellations – you can download the info from the Net. Constellations are clusters of stars which form certain shapes, like Cancer the crab, Aires the ram, Scorpio the scorpion, Gemini the twins and so on. Different constellations are visible at different times of the night and at different times of the year. Will make you realize the vastness of the world, and hey, you just might end up clinging to each other even tighter together after feeling so small.
– Go bird watching
It’s mating (hahaha!) time for many of the birds at this time of the year. It’s great fun, especially if you’re the romantic type. The male birds will do all kinds of things to attract the female. We suggest you try to spot the big Black Eagles doing it; there are many of them around. The males will do some spectacular dives and so on, and then the male and the female latch on to each other, front to front, zip around in dizzying circles in the sky and hey, the little ones get born a month or so later! Yes, you’re right, they only do it – mate – once a year! Even the crows have their mating season at this time of the year.
