Where the Chocolate Overflows

Yesterday Nina and I jumped on the train and head to the land of chocolate and more chocolate for the Eurochocolate festival. After 3 hours we found ourselves in Perugia, but with no idea how to find the center or the festival. Maybe we should have planned this out a little better. Luckily we met someone on the Pollino trip who is studying Perugia so we gave him a call and he guided us to correct place. It took a waiting through a 40 minute line to buy a ticket for the mini metro, a 5 minute metro ride, and 3 sets of escalators up to find the chocolate, but we made it! Also note that we did not look at the weather and were quite underdressed for the drizzly, cold weather. Characteristic Taylor behavior at it's prime. Always makes for an adventure though. It gets better at the end too.

Our first stop in this chocolate dreamland was a tent making nutella calzones (closest I can describe it in English). Mine had hazelnuts, favorite compliment to chocolate, in it too. Dream.

And then we entered the masses, with our friend in Perugia as our guide. He clued us into all the secrets. We bought a 5 euro card that made us eligible for free stuff at various booths throughout the festival. Best decision. It was fun to find the booths and maneuver our way to the front of the crowds. We received quite the little stash from the day, including the free samples and chocolate we ate there, an the chocolate pasta and strawberry chocolate bar I bought.

Other highlights include chocolate tortellini, a huge display of chocolate being made, a Milka sponsored ferris wheel, chocolate kebab, and the most chocolate in one place I have ever seen. It was nice to escape the masses and wander the other parts of town though. We all agreed that living in Italy has created a strong dislike for tourists. Why can't they all just stay home? People think strollers in masses of people are a good idea. Never.

We ended the day with the most delicious brick oven pizza and relaxing in our friend's apartment, so much so that we decided to take a later train and almost missed that one. At about 8:45 you could see two very late girls sprinting toward the train station in the rain. The first ticket machine was in Italian, but we managed to buy a ticket back to Rome. Only problem, we got a refund receipt for the change, but not the actual change. With a ticket still to buy, 3 minutes until the train was scheduled to leave, and a machine that wouldn't take our 50, we were a little panicked. Praise Jesus there was another ticket machine and trains in Italy are always delayed. Needless to say we made it home! Not without realizing Nina's ticket was for a different train and the help of our guardian angel from Oakland though. Stick with me and adventures galore. Successful day trip!