Crazy Chocolatiers

I woke up this morning in a panic since my phone had not been set along my bed I had thought that I had overslept.  I raced to my purse to grab my phone with groggy hands and felt relieved that I in fact had woken up 5 minutes ahead of schedule.  I took a deep breath before getting dressed, eating breakfast (cheerios), packing my backpack and heading off for school.  It was cool this morning on my walk with a nice breeze flowing through the streets.  The humidity intensified the closer I got to the Rambla (main strip) because they were power cleaning it from the festival events last night.  When I got to school, I had my daily, morning chat with Madre and settled in for a hopefully quick day of classes.

As it got closer to 9am, my heart started to race because of my presentation.  I hate that feeling right before you get up to speak and you feel like your stomach is going to fall out your butt and your throat starts to clog and perspiration begins to stick to every inch of skin.  Luckily, I think I did fine on the actual presentation and when it came time to give it my heart had slowed a little bit.  After my first ten minutes (my part), I could breath a little easier since I was done with one class and the next one I could just relax as we did presentations in our other class which meant all I had to do was listen…during the break, I rushed over to print some papers and called it a productive day at school. To celebrate Ivy’s birthday today we got to enjoy some chocolate cupcakes with chocolate frosting…the start of the craze for chocolate begins early…I will be stopping by that cupcake place not only to try another cupcake but get a picture to show Madre about our Spanish Sprinkles J

After class, we booked it over to our apartments, grabbed lunch, and headed for the tram.  Another 54 minute tram ride to the Valor store was staring at us in the face.  I had the excitement of my card recharged for more trips. And I also added a picture of the tram in which I take so that you all could see what I am talking about.  On the trip we had to purchase another ticket because our trip cards don’t allow us to go as far as we needed.  When we got to our stop, we got off the tram and headed in the direction that people pointed us to the Valor chocolate factory.  When we got closer, I was surprised that the factory was smaller than I imagined for as much as it produces.  We got there early so to kill time we walked around the grocery store down the street (tours are every hour on the hour).  There grocery stores have meat with the head and all body parts which creeps me out as you walk around and their eyes are staring at you like PLEASE DON"T EAT ME...so I added a picture so you could see...When it got to five, we stepped into the video room and watched a quick view of the history of Valor.  Then, we walked around to see machines that they used to produce chocolate and a few interesting facts.  First, Valor does not produce white chocolate because it actually doesn’t contain chocolate…it is just coco butter, milk, and sugar and is also the most unhealthy.  They get a majority of the cocoa beans from Ghana and the cocoa bean is produced only in tropical areas because it is very sensitive.  It grows at the bottom of the tree and when it is ripe it turns a whitish red color.  Each bean holds 45 to 60 beans and must be opened with a machete because the shell is hard.  The beans are then dried by sun or fire (most by sun because it better tasting).  The various beans that grow in different areas are used for different things (aroma, taste, or chocolatiness).  The beans once they arrive at the factory are peeled and separated from the cocoa butter and then used to make chocolate (once peeled you can eat them but they are very bitter).  After the information, we walked around the short museum which held all of the various rappers of Valor used through the years (they are on the 5/6^th generation).  We also got to see some mayan sculptures made from Valor chocolate (which I snuck a picture of because we weren’t supposed to).

 

The best part came next.  CHOCOLATE TASTING AND BUYING!!!!!...we were allowed to try the 70% cocoa, chocolate con leche, chocolate con leche with almonds, chocolate puro, chocolate puro con almonds...they were all pretty good but the chocolate con leche was by far my favorite.  They had various other flavors that consisted of dark and milk chocolate with banana, berries, orange and other things.  They had chocolate cups that were filled with mousse and chocolate flavored with different tastes in boxes and behind the glass they had truffles and such.  I decided on a chocolate con leche bar and 3 individual chocolates (vanilla truffle (which the lady said was the best pick and was hand made…it was delicious), white chocolate filled with dark chocolate truffle, and a dark chocolate truffle that was really bitter and I didn’t swallow it).  Stuffed with chocolate, we headed to the tram station with 10 minutes to spare.  Once the tram came we realized we were on the wrong side and had to run around the track to catch it.  We got on right as the doors were closing and had sprinted the whole way thinking we were gonna miss it which would have been a bummer since they only come every half hour for the one we needed home.  Luckily we made it and it was a funny store to think about.  We chatted the whole way home and had a few laughs about things.  Kat and Sam are pretty awesome pair J

Once home it was around 7pm so I made a small salad of spinach, broccoli, cauliflower, and apples with balsamic vinaigrette.  I ate and watched two and a half men before working on fixing my presentation for Tuesday in SW 450.  I later talked to Madre about my day, took a shower, and then went to bed early to catch up on the sleep that I will be missing in the next week considering there is so much to do in only the 9 days left.  I cannot believe I have been here for almost 3 weeks already.

  

Breeze of breeze where are you…it seems hotter the closer you get to Altea and go further west of Alicante.  The wind stops blowing and the heat starts cooking, and the time starts flying…The chocolate was amazing and the experience was so much fun.  I will miss these Spaniard adventures, but enjoy them why I can J