5/18/12: Emory Women's Soccer and the Chocolate Factory

After spending our second night in Como, we packed up our belongings and boarded back onto the bus to make our way to Switzerland. The drive was only about an hour and included a checkpoint at the border. It’s pretty crazy that we had the opportunity to travel to another country during our tour. The roundabouts turned into winding roads as we traveled deeper into Switzerland. Red rooftops were replaced by colorful houses, many with rose bushes lining their front lawns. Though the trip began with a slightly archaic vibe in Como, our venture into Switzerland had a much more rural and agrarian feel. On the outskirts of Lugano, the bus pulled into our first stop on this leg, the famous Swiss Alprose chocolate factory. 

            We were greeted upon entry with a small biscuit that had been dipped in a chocolate fountain located right at the entrance. It definitely wasn’t too shabby of a way to start off our tour, as many of our stomachs were already grumbling with excitement.  One of the women who helped hand out our initial snacks proceeded to explain to us the process of refining a cocoa bean. Sara translated as she took us through the steps it took to produce their world-famous Swiss chocolate. This elaborate process began with the harvesting of the beans from where they are originally grown in South America and other regions of warmer temperatures. As Switzerland’s climate is not suitable for cocoa bean growth, they get these raw materials from abroad. Also included in the process is shelling the bean, grinding it into a finer powder, and mixing it with the other key ingredients of milk, sugar, and vanilla extract. What we learned from this portion of our tour: Apparently cocoa bean shells are a staple of pigs’ diet. Following the recap of the production process, we made our way to observe the factory itself.

Kaele and Kaiser looking through selections of chocolate.

            A strong aroma of chocolate immediately filled our nostrils as we entered the first room. I’m going to be honest, I’m not sure what many of the machines did but it sure as heck smelled good when we went in there. We walked along a narrow walkway overlooking the factory. Every so often there was a sign describing the machinery below. The machine I think we were most amused with was the one that would shoot the molded chocolates onto a conveyer belt, which eventually made their way downwards to be wrapped and inspected by employees. Following our brief tour, we headed to the factory’s museum area. Well, a few of us prematurely detoured toward the free samples in the gift shop, and then made our way to the museum area to watch the film they had for us. The film essentially explained what we had observed in the factory accompanied with some lighthearted background music. With its completion, we made our way to the gift shop where we took full advantage of the free samples. The samples included dark chocolate, milk chocolate, white chocolate, chocolate covered nuts, chocolate covered krispies, and what we believed to be the remnants of a dismantled chocolate bunny.

            I had no idea that purchasing chocolate could be so meticulous. We were a little overwhelmed with all of the options, which certainly wasn’t helping the fact that many of us are chocoholics in the first place (shout out to Claire Rubel). After much sampling and internal debating, I chose to purchase a dark chocolate bar for myself to enjoy. I also choose a bag of mini chocolate bars to bring home to my family as I felt they had the best chance at surviving my six weeks abroad in London after this trip (sorry to ruin the surprise Mom, Dad, and Sam…hope you can wait that long now). Chocolates in hand, and in stomach, we exited the factory both excited and a little less hungry than we did when we entered. From the chocolate factory we drove about twenty minutes into the town of Lugano where we were spending the afternoon.

Lake Lugano and surrounding mountains.

            After arriving in Lugano, we split up to explore the city. The city resides on the shore of Lake Lugano, which is surrounded by towering Swiss mountains. The city itself is a fairly modern niche within Switzerland, and is considered one of the three major cities in the country. The stone covered streets were lined with colorful shops and restaurants. The words I continuously used to describe the buildings as we walked around were “cute” or “pretty”. Vague, I know, but it was really a beautiful area. Myself, Lidija, Veronica, and Kaele explored the town and eventually grabbed lunch at a to-go bar of sorts outside of a market. They opted for pizza and I chose to order a sandwich. Though we paid with Euros, we received change in Swiss Francs that we later chose to spend in order to not have them go to waste. The rest of the afternoon was spent finding somewhere to sit and hang out, taking photographs by the lake, getting about six inches away from a swan, and beginning to produce the next video sensation on YouTube (sorry folks, can’t reveal more information than that).

Buildings in Lugano

            Following our brief stint in Switzerland, we drove back across the border into Italy to make our way east toward Venice. What I learned from this drive: I am literally incapable of staying awake during bus rides lasting longer than 45 minutes. I wish I was able to tell everyone in vivid detail what we passed during this drive, but I was sleeping for at least two out of our four hours across Italy. I awoke as we were rolling into a rest stop in which we were able to hop off the bus and go to the restroom, in addition to purchase some snacks. After an morning of sweets, I grabbed a bag of chips while others opted for either chocolate, wafers, or the Italian version of Cheetos which were immediately snagged by Meredith. Soon enough, we were off for about another hour until we arrived at our hotel outside of Padova.

            Once we checked into the hotel, threw our bags in our rooms, and became slightly disgruntled about the lack of free wifi (especially Merrill who has been dying to finish watching the first episode of the Bachelorette), we met in the dining area for dinner. While we were eating bread to hold us over before the meal was served, Liz proposed a heartfelt and hilarious toast about her journey as an Emory Eagle. Pasta with alfredo sauce was the prima piatti, followed by chicken con funghi (mushrooms), carrots, and tomatoes for the secondo piatti. For dessert we savored ice cream with chocolate flakes in it. As our evening was winding down, I couldn’t believe that we had been in a different country earlier that day. From Como to Lugano to Padova all in 24 hours, we called it a night to rest up before traveling to Venice on Saturday morning! Ciao!