Five ways the Bruges chocolate museum will make you nuts

by Tom Johansmeyer on

Choco-Story is a pretty wild place. Predictably, it calls Bruges home. After all, Belgium and chocolate go together like hot dogs and obesity. On my recent trip to Bruges, I heard about Choco-Story from the guy at the front desk of my hotel. Given that I like to nibble a bit of chocolate every now and then, it seemed worth a visit.

What I saw shocked me.

This isn’t a museum in the conventional sense. The displays seem to have been designed from the tobacco industry playbook. The propaganda was extensive, and in a departure from the cigarette world, it wasn’t shrouded effectively. Rather, insane innuendo was offered throughout the museum, and its true nature was painfully obvious. Had it been executed slightly better, the whole thing would have been funny. Alas, it was not.

So, if you’re looking for some chocolate fun, Choco-Story will drive you absolutely nuts. Here are the top five ways this stop in Bruges will make your mind swirl:

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1. Orwell would be impressed: Choco-Story resembles the industry’s Ministry of Truth more than it does a museum. Sure, you can walk through the history of chocolate in this Belcolade-sponsored environment … but you’ll get some strong “messaging” along the way. Chocolate, it seems, hasn’t sufficiently been linked to acne, weight gain or tooth decay – at least not according to the signs. Without coming out and claiming … well … anything, exhibits suggest that chocolate may be an aphrodisiac. And that the fat should probably lose weight before introducing dark chocolate back into their diets (the slim, on the other hand, can munch as much as they want).

2. It takes a while to get to the food: I realize that chocolate has a long and rich history. It takes centuries to get anywhere near the developments most closely related to the snacks we enjoy today. That doesn’t mean that Choco-Story needs to cover every historical moment in painstaking detail. Not every contribution should get equal weight, especially from the perspective of the sugar-fiending visitor.

3. There isn’t much chocolate: to say that Choco-Story isn’t interactive is to conceal the frustration that a visit invites. Throughout the museum, you’ll wander through displays that range from historical to propaganda, but you won’t really find any chocolate (not the kind you can stick in your mouth). At the end of the tour, there is a display. You can see a chocolatier at work in a spotless kitchen, surrounded by statues constructed in that particular medium. You’re limited to looking and not touching, however. This strip club-style constraint continues into the demonstration room, where a speaker shows and tells without letting your fingers near a nibble. Guests are given only one piece of chocolate, and they can’t get it until they leave through a door that’s closed until the end of the lecture.

4. Toys: okay, so the chocolate is controlled tightly. That wouldn’t be so bad if the museum actually rocked. While there are some interesting chocolate-related artifacts, they are mixed in with Lego-style displays intended to illustrate the history of the sweet. They really don’t look that good. It’s a joke. A cartoonish chocolate character appears in some signs in an effort to inject a bit of humor, but he fails – horribly.

5. Cash only: for most people, this might not be a big deal. I don’t carry a lot of cash, though, and I know I’m not alone. If you don’t have cash with you, you’re stuck looking for an ATM when you’d rather be inside the museum. The silver lining in all this is that you really aren’t missing anything anyway.

It’s enough to make you want to snort some chocolate …

Five Belgian chocolate statues and their inspirations

by Tom Johansmeyer on

When you wander through Europe, you run into statues (literally, if you have your nose stuck in your guidebook). There are lots of ’em, and they’re all old. Some are incredibly impressive: I still have a soft spot, of sorts, for Venus de Milo. Others, however, are utterly forgettable – vast collections of stone or metal that are important while falling short of stunning.

Visit Bruges, Belgium, and the rules change entirely.

Sure, there are plenty of statues, including a piece by Michaelangelo that somehow found its way out of Italy (this doesn’t happen much, to be honest). The interesting stuff isn’t sitting in churches or etched from stone. Rather, it’s built from a distinctly Belgian medium: chocolate.

I’m not joking.

Spend a few minutes in Belgium, and you’ll be bombarded by the sweet stuff (you’ll even be encouraged to stick some up your nose). There’s chocolate everywhere, and as I saw shortly after I hit the ground in Bruges, it’s even on display.

The local chocolate museum, Choco-Story, is home to quite a few of them – unsurprising, really, given that the propaganda exhibition museum has the tools and expertise necessary to make it happen. There are a few more elsewhere in the city, though, and you should keep an eye out for unique, interesting and tasty creations all over the cute little city.

Below, you’ll find five interesting chocolate creations, along with some guesses at what may have inspired them. In some cases, it’s a straight line from the real world to chocolate equivalent, but I will admit I stretched plausibility in a few places. Ultimately, the extent to which I may have fudged is up to you!

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London Olympics 2012: One year to go celebrated today

by Chris Owen on

The 12-month countdown to the greatest sporting show on earth is under way this week as London reaches the one year to go mark for the 2012 summer Olympics. Today, Olympic athletes from across Europe come together at a star-studded day marking the occasion along with fans invited to Eurostar’s London 2012 Olympic celebrations.

Over the last few months, thousands of Olympic fans have entered competitions to win the chance to be part of Eurostar’s ‘One year to go’ celebrations. Arriving from countries including France, and Belgium, competition winners and athletes will be joined by winners from the UK to be greeted by double world champion and Olympic silver medalist Colin Jackson and others then join them in having their foot prints cast in clay as they symbolically mark the first steps on the way to the 2012 Games

“This is such a wonderful opportunity for members of the public to experience the London 2012 Olympic Games firsthand” Jackson told the Hillingdon Times.

.Following a welcome speeches from dignitaries, winners will then be transported to a celebration lunch held at an London restaurant with stunning views over the Olympic Park where Jackson will be their host for the remainder of their unique experience.

As the Official International Rail Services Provider to London 2012, Eurostar will bring hundreds of thousands of sports fans from the continent to London.

Flickr photo by spcbrass

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Here’s the one sign you have a CHOCOLATE ADDICTION

by Tom Johansmeyer on

It’s 3 AM. You’re at the office, top button of your shirt released and tie loosened. You’re nowhere near finished for the night, and there’s a good chance you’ll see the rest of the company show up before you go home. So, you reach into the lower right drawer of your desk, take out your stash and do a quick, refreshing line off your desk. Exhilarating.

No, you don’t have to call Nancy Reagan on me to leave an acerbic comment below. I’m not talking about coke … I’m talking about cocoa. Chocolate.

We all know someone who loves chocolate, and there are always a few who take that tasty affair to a totally uncomfortable level. Well, when Christmas comes this year, you won’t have to try as hard. When I was in Bruges, Belgium a few weeks ago, I ran into the one gift that will appeal to the choco-holic in your life.
The Chocolate Shooter describes itself as “a blast of chocolate pleasure”. And it must be true … it says so on the box! This item, which is rather disturbing, provides chocolate in snort-able form, delivering a quick shot of dark Belgian magic when you need it most. Whether it’s brought out for parties or kept under a bottle of Johnnie Black at the office, this device really is essential for the most die-hard of chocolate fanatics.

But, you know that. Who else would this contraption appeal to?

If you aren’t disturbed yet, wait a minute. The designer of the Chocolate Shooter, Dominique Persoone, claims to have taught the Rolling Stones how to sniff the sweet stuff. Seriously. Maybe this is why Keith Richards is comatose – not the drugs (just kidding, mom).

If you need to pick up a Chocolate Shooter – because you’d rather contribute to someone’s problem than help resolve it – check out The Chocolate Line in Bruges. The store also has conventional chocolate treats, so you can reward yourself for feeding someone else’s beast.

Lost travel friends

by Alex Robertson Textor on

Before Facebook–hell, before mobile telephones and email–it wasn’t all that easy to keep in touch with people you might meet on the road.

You could exchange addresses and telephone numbers, of course, but by the time you were in a position to make a call or scribble a letter, the immediacy of the connection you’d shared while staying up all night on that Sardinian beach would probably be gone. Just like that, your travel friends would become lost travel friends.

In some instances, the fact that connections were more difficult to establish was a positive thing. Only connections of consequence would outlast the original encounter. The rest would fade away in a pleasant swirl of nostalgia, and you’d never be confronted by vile comments on your Facebook wall from that faint blast from the past who doesn’t belong in your future.

Nonetheless, there’s a little bit of sadness associated with all those lost travel buddies. The kinds of connections forged on the road are quite special–immediate, often effortless, involving snap decisions to trust, share, and engage.

Here’s my own hall of fame of fascinating people met on my travels over the years with whom I either immediately lost touch or failed to remain in contact.

Elke. I think that was the name of the soft-spoken anarchist who alighted from my Berlin-bound train at the final pre-border station in West Germany in the summer of 1989. We’d talked for hours and shared each other’s food. I think she wanted to write children’s books. She was deeply alienated by consumerism and dressed quite shabbily, yet she seemed cautiously happy. I remember that she waved goodbye as she left the train.

The countess. She had a von in her name and lived in a super rich suburb of Munich, on a lake. I was 17. We took the overnight train from Paris to Munich and stayed up the entire time talking and smoking a million cigarettes. Where are you now, countess? Living with your five children and count husband in a Bavarian castle? Doing drugs with your Romanian bodybuilder boyfriend in Mallorca?

The French couple who drove me and my father from Rijeka to Ljubljana in their miniscule car. We met on the Jadrolinija ferry from Dubrovnik. He was portly; she was tiny. They spoke very little English and our French was execrable but we laughed the entire way.

The East German man. Lars? It was 1992. I was stuck at a hostel in Oostende for a few days waiting for a ferry to England. He was a mad traveler, driving off every few weeks to explore another corner of Europe until recently forbidden to him. He told me how much he wanted to visit Iceland, and several months later I received a postcard from him from Reykjavik. I wonder sometimes if this fellow now works in the travel industry.

Carol Ann, the American nun. She shared a regular train compartment with me and my sister, which we tried to turn into a makeshift couchette by drawing the shades and pretending to be asleep. Whenever someone would open the door looking for a place to sit, my sister, 14 at the time, would sit up in a fake stupor and ask them to be quiet so that we could remain sleeping. Sister Carol Ann giggled each time this happened.

[Image: Flickr | fazen]