After boldly proclaiming my love of tacos and bemoaning the lack of food variety in Italy in my last travel journal entry, I am happy to say that this week my taco craving was satisfied. Meredith H. spotted a taco kit in the grocery store, and, as you might guess, in practically no time we were on our way home with 24 taco shells, a large jar of salsa, nachos, tomatoes, olives, and 2,000 grams of ground beef. That night, all of us made a delicious Mexican feast. It was heavenly. Unfortunately we could not find any cheese remotely resembling cheddar, so we had to do without or substitute with parmesan. Despite a few minor setbacks, however, it was well worth it. I thought I ought to include this information as a conclusion to last week’s journal.
Continuing the food theme, this weekend we took a group excursion to EuroChocolate, an international chocolate festival. It goes on every year around this time and takes place in Perugia, the capital of our neighboring region, Umbria. Perugia is a beautiful historic city and, even though the weather was overcast and foggy, still had very pretty views from its hilltop location. Up and down the wide streets were chocolate vendors from all over the world, mainly from Europe. Lindt and Toblerone are the only names Americans might recognize, but there were vast amounts of others, too. I was feeling a little disappointed this week because at home the State Fair is going on, and I knew while all my friends would be going I would be missing it. However, EuroChocolate more than made up for it in crowds and calories, and I even got to ride on the Milka ferris wheel.
There were also exhibits about South America and the origins of chocolate. On one of the tables there were pamphlets, both in Italian and Spanish, and I picked up a Spanish one. The man at the table thought I was Italian and told me I could read the Italian pamphlet, if I’d like. I purposefully chose the Spanish pamphlet because I have taken much more of that language. However, since I have been learning Italian, I’ve been getting my languages slightly confused. When I tried to say to the man that I knew Spanish better, it came out as, “Mi espanol รจ mejor di italiano,” a jumbled mess that doesn’t really make sense in either language. Nevertheless, from the pamphlet I was able to learn a little about chocolate and the history of the cocoa bean. It seems that the best cocoa comes from Chuao, Venezuela. This part of Venezuela has a very particular altitude, temperature, humidity and climate that make its cocoa beans considered the best in the world because of their aroma and special taste. Since early colonization, this Venezuelan product has been in great demand in Europe, American and Asian markets. Before the high demand for oil, cocoa was the principal export of the country and a vital part of its economy. The cocoa bean has also always been a central part of the culture, sometimes having important religious and spiritual values, as well. At the exhibit, I even tasted some primitive Venezuelan cocoa concoctions. Frankly, they were disappointing: far from the smooth, magical deliciousness that is today’s chocolate.
EuroChocolate was a fun way to spend a Saturday, even though there were seas of people swarming the streets. One thing we have discovered about Italians is that they do not like to wait in lines, and you can imagine how difficult it is to make your way through a mass of people who do not like to wait their turn nor consider it rude to cut in front of you. We had to resort to forming a train by holding on to the person in front of us, like a group of elementary school students, to avoid being separated. This became quite tiring after a few hours, but we did come home with several chocolate novelties, including chocolate pasta and a chocolate map of Perugia.
Another exciting aspect of our trip to Perugia was that to get there, we had to ride on a different train. Usually when we travel we have to take an hour long bus ride from Sansepolcro to the larger city of Arezzo, and from there we can take a train to wherever we want to go. However, in Sansepolcro there is a small train that runs to Perugia, and so on Saturday I was able to experience that for the first time. I love trains—it is very peaceful to sit quietly and ride through the countryside, taking in the scenery. Something that surprised me is that whenever you go through tunnels on a train, your ears pop. My science major friend Meredith H. tells me this is because of a theory in physics that has to do with objects in motion creating different amounts of pressure. It is a strange phenomenon, because ear-popping is something you generally expect only on a plane. In any case, I am truly enjoying learning so many different means of traveling that I have never used before.
Until next time, ciao!
Emily
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