CHOCOLATE!

As the capital of the Umbria region, Perugia is the home to many different festivals throughout the year. Already in the short time that I have been here, I have seen a science festival, a puppet festival and another children's festival. The city seems pretty small, but apparently it's huge, because it's been the home to all of these interesting happenings! And this week, once again, the city is buzzing with excitement and bustling with people as Perugia prepares for the 100th annual Chocolate festival!!! By far, the most exciting in my opinion, this one also appears at this stage to be the biggest!
The town square, home to the fountain has a huge stage set up on the middle of it, almost eclipsing the huge fountain! And all of the main streets are now filled with stands and cases for the chocolate that is coming! The Perugina Chocolate factory is here in town too, and they're sponsoring most of the stands, but you can already tell that there are far more companies involved. And thats music to my ears, because the more types of chocolate I can try, the better! I've been told that they make literally everything out of chocolate this week, including but not limited to a house, flowers, cds ... EVERYTHING! Much like the ice sculptures that you see in Boston during New Years Eve celebrations, these stands and cases will be the new home chocolate sculptures and I couldn't be more excited! I mean chocolate makes pretty much anyone happy, but having all of these cool sculptures and creations made strictly out of the velvety goodness that is chocolate, in all types of varieties is beyond thrilling. And rumor has it that while the sculptures are working on their creations, they throw the scraps and non integral peices to passers by. Needless to say I will be making several trips to be one of those passers by so that I can grab just a little taste of this crazy tradition.
I can't but wonder though, why don't we have more chocolate festivals in the US? I think it would make us a much more pleasant country if we could all get a little chocolate in our lives :)