Snow Days and Chocolate

I was afraid Chocolate Nation would be cheesy along the lines of the embarrassingly-bad Historium in Brugge. It was not! In fact, it was great. We went on a weekday the kids and Chris had off, so we had the place almost to ourselves. We know a bit about cacao (Hawaii is the only state in the USA that can grow it) and I still learned a lot!

Chocolate Nation is a museum in Antwerp (just across from the beautiful train station) about chocolate in Belgium—where it comes from, how it gets here, how they make it, where it goes (in my tummy, of course).

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It was fun seeing the uniquely Belgian aspects of the process, how chocolate ties Belgium to other regions of the world, and how chocolate has shaped Belgian history.

I think pre-COVID there may have been tastings along the way. We received goodie bags of chocolate for the kids at the end and tasting boxes for Chris and me. Smokey bitter chocolate from South American beans, mellow fullness from African beans, fruity ruby chocolate, a couple of pralines—YUM.

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Icy sub-zero winds whipped snow through the streets but we were cozy and warm inside. Afterwards Chris asked if anyone wanted to walk around Antwerp. We did not. But we drove down the main Chinatown street in honor of Lunar New Year, which we celebrated later in the week with Thai food and decorations we got at a Chinese New Year parade in Honolulu. We had a fun week with lots of days off!

In other snowy day news, kids are mostly enjoying soccer—friends tipped us off to an English-speaking, one-day-per-week skills clinic that has so far coincided with the coldest winter days with the most precipitation. It’s fun to have a reason to be out enjoying the snow and meet people. There’s no snack rotation either!

Isaac likes running around and improving his footwork and aim. Eloise… well, she brings a bit of relaxed island style to her game.

“Eloise! Get the ball!” I called out as she watched the ball roll past.

“But everybody else is already getting it,” she observed with casual disinterest.

Chris narrated Eloise’s internal dialogue to the kids’ GREAT amusement: “Oh look, the soccer ball. Should I kick it? …NAH.”

I’m not sure competitive sports are going to feature largely in our future.

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Maybe we can make kitten snuggling into a competition.