Jaffa Jaffa Jaffa Jaffa Jaffa

Finally, we are all caught up. Now I can stop living in past tense and in another city, trying to strenuously remember old details already being replaced in memory by new happenings from the present.

As explained before, up until now I have been quite content and slightly chilled here in Dunedin, but that has all changed. I now realize that I have picked perfection by coming to live here. Why this steep escalation in feelings you may wonder, is it another passionate electric blanket in your life? Well friend, it’s even better.

There is a city-wide, week long, delicious and savory, beautifully spectacular CHOCOLATE FESTIVAL here.

I am in Cadbury Heaven.

The most fascinating event of the chocolate festival involved two of my favorite things in the whole world—chocolate and winning. Set at the tip top of none other than the steepest street in the WORLD, thousands of Jaffas were let loose and rolled down the street. At the finish there was a small tunnel where the first one through won the fabulous prize of… (drum roll please)… CHOCOLATE and grocery and petrol vouchers, and other mundane things not as impressive as the CHOCOLATE!!

Here is Baldwin Street, the steepest street in the world—so steep they put steps in parts of the sidewalk because it is too difficult to walk up the sidewalk!

Here is a Jaffa! It is sort of a mix between a Jawbreaker and a chocolate ball. The orange ones taste, get this, orangey chocolaty…

Per usual my flatmates and I were late to the Jaffa Race. We ran a normally 30 minute walk in about 15 minutes, when the huge mass of people that didn’t seem very big 10 blocks back started getting much larger. We managed to wide-eyed sneak our way to the middle of the pack, distracting the crowd with our exaggerated American accents, just in time for the second race. For the first time in history, we were going to watch purple Jaffas race down Baldwin Street. I’d like to say it was a fascinating amazing experience, but these things are pretty small and my eyesight isn’t too great. If you’ve ever seen The Mummy it is about equivalent to watching thousands of Scarabs rolling down a steep hill a block away. If you have never seen The Mummy, it looks like a dark purple blanket is being laid down the street.

After the race, kids with plastic bags were lifted over the fence to gather the loot of chocolate. They were repeatedly told by security that they shouldn’t eat the now dented dirty chocolates but I could see in their gleaming eyes that they didn’t care.

Of course after watching chocolate get hurled down pavement, we needed to eat some chocolate of our own and lots of it. So, we walked to the nearest 2-4 and bought our own mini Jaffas to try. Again, of course, we were not satisfied with just chocolate so we continued walking to the “best fish n’ chips shop in Dunedin” and watched as the workers deep fried our food to order, handed it to us in soaking greased paper, and devoured.

Overall, my living here has turned into a chocolaty greasy heavenly time, hopefully it will continue to be so.

Cheers!