current mood: feeling happy and content, probably with smudges of chocolate still on my face

I just got back from a chocolate festival. All I have to say is, Wow, I just got back from a CHOCOLATE festival. A chocolate FESTIVAL. Festival of... yeah. Chocolate. What a glorious idea!
I have a slight buzz going on... my thoughts are sort of fuzzy and my stomach is almost unpleasantly full. Almost. I´d say the buzz is from the caffeine, but I would be totally down for a nap right now so that doesn´t make a lot of sense. I feel... saturated... with chocolate. So much so that I´m having trouble thinking linearly. I can´t figure out a good way to start telling you this story. You see, there are three main elements here: before the chocolate, the chocolate and the aftermath. While some part of me says to start at the beginning, the rest of me wants to just talk about the chocolate. Sigh... well, this is my blog so I´m going to do what I want. You get: the chocolate. The other stuff might come later.

Well, let me set the scene for you. This week, an enormous white tent was constructed directly behind the Arc du Triomf. As I walked under the obnoxiously large and useless arch, I felt bad about the tent´s presence because you can´t take a picture of the Arc without getting at least a corner of the tent in the shot. In hindsight, I suppose it isn´t that big of a deal. I once took pictures of the Arc, but I deleted most (if not all?) of them. What a pointless thing to have, I said to myself... delete. Anyway, inside this rather too-large tent there are nearly 60 booths set up for vendors, two stages and a bar in the back. Over the course of today and tomorrow, various events are scheduled to be held on these stages. While I was there, I saw a bit of a magic show on one and a cooking demonstration on the other. Just as I walked in, a showing of Chocolat was ending. I was there with Rachel and Ayla, two of the girls in the Knox Program, and a few of their friends who arrived in Barcelona yesterday to visit. We walked in, took stock of the situation, and jumped right in. It only took a couple of visits to the first booths to realize that over half of the booths had free samples. This made everyone a little giddy, and initially we were rather like little kids on christmas, darting here and there, furtively (or so we thought) reaching for a second taste before hunting out the next target. It was a lot of fun. Well, one lap was completed, and then another, and then we all bought chocolate and sampled each other´s purchases. I fell in love with the white chocolate and raspberry bombons.
It cost 8 euros to get in, but two euros are kicked back to you to spend inside and half of the cost of my ticket will eventually be reimbursed by the Knox Program, given that I write a paragraph (in Spanish) about why this was a culturally enriching event. I´m sure I can think of something. :)

written by

achavero on November 9, 2007 from Barcelona, Spain

from the travel blog: Amanda in Barcelona

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