The Aztecs would turn over in their graves if they knew that their precious, spiced, bitter, sacred “Drink of Gods” is today mixed with sugar, milk, and vanilla; and sold in any grocery store and gas station.
As I looked at various ancient tools for cleaning, fermenting, and preparing cocoa pods and beans, I could not help but wonder how the aztecs first got to performing the laborious process of picking, cleaning, fermenting two times, drying, and roasting the cocoa beans? Why did they not just satisfy themselves with the sweet pulp of the pod, spitting out the beans? Or perhaps somebody spit out the beans and left them to ferment and then dry and then his or her children ate them by mistake and found them delicious? Or perhaps their god appeared to a priest in a dream and told him how to make cacahuatl?
And who first spilled sugar and milk into a drink that was served prepared in water; hot, spicy, and bitter? How did the drink of warriors, priests, and men requiring strength become the consoler of lonely women sitting by their televisions?
Perhaps the chocolate man in the Chocolate Story museum in Bruges knows the delicious history of this delicacy. Because why otherwise would he try to eat up himself?
(Bruges, Belgium; December 2016)
15 years ago I spent two feverish, hazy days in Bruges. Maybe we did a canal ride. Maybe we had some Flemish cakes. Possibly did we try ask around for a jazz bar but only ran into tourists, not locals, at night.
My worst ever memory of sleeping in a mixed dorm was during those 2 dizzy days. It involved a dozen partygoers and a lot of booze (not for us), and a terribly smelly room in the morning.
But this time Bruges was crisp, cold, and sunny. Like a picture postcard of gingerbread houses in a row, with a few canals in between. And this time I do remember the (freaking cold) canal ride.
(Bruges, Belgium; December 2016)
Turns out Manneken Pis has a wardrobe, and a sister. Jeanneke Pis, with her yogic flexibility, looks like she is pleasantly meditating on the way of the world. You can find her peeing away in the end of a little dead-end street, just off the Grand Place.
(Brussels, Belgium; December 2016)
Dinner at the Drug Opera. What we ate will remain untold.
How many megawatts of power every night? How big is the environmental footprint? Maybe some years later we will be chided for this extravagance. But tonight the Brussels market square was beautiful.
(Brussels, Belgium; December 2016)
It was the days between Christmas and New Year. When everybody wraps up warmly and goes out to town to look for friends, items on sale, or mulled wine. When the bleak weather is easily rescued by good company as work is not on everybody’s mind.
When the christmas tree was still relatively much alive while most around it was winter dead in the dead of winter.
(Brussels, Belgium; December 2016)
To those who will remember 2017 as another snow-less winter: here, from the archives of February month. And it was bitterly cold, too. Thank goodness it is April now.
Oslo was as crisp and tranquil as the weather on a Sunday morning in December. After a ladies’ weekend out (including spa and sushi and jazz), a morning stroll and a cup of hot tea a welcome moment of mindfulness.
I must have been the only one thinking so as the streets were almost abandoned. So much beauty and nobody but me to see it, at least not today. 
(Oslo, Norway; December 2016)
De-icing at Helsinki airport is routine on nippy mornings. I’ve always wanted to replace the light-orange viscous liquid with shock pink. The airplanes taking off would look so much more cheery.
Lighter times are coming. The sun hasn’t forgot about us.
This blue marble 