Googly-Eyed Teens and the Chocolate Pact

LINDAU, GERMANY – May 31, 2006

I am sitting at the far end of one of Lindau’s docks, surrounded by dozens of yachts tottering in the blue-gray water of Lake Bodensee. It’s just me, the yachts, and my chocolate bar – yes, chocolate bar – enjoying the sunshine that is gloriously streaming down on my pale-again arms and legs.

I'm under- dressed in my tank and jeanskirt, considering the temperature is hovering somewhere just under 60 F. But I don’t care.

This is the first time in days I’ve seen the sun shine, and my soul just needs a little overdose of golden rays. The warmth is delicious on my skin; I could be content to do little else but to spend the remainder of the afternoon sitting here in this exact spot, soaking in the sun, and the lakeside ambience. Behind me, seven small sailboats, each steered by tow young neon-orange lifejacket-wearing youths, peruse the gentle waters, their instructor making wide arcs in their tow has he checks on each team.

It’s a good day in Lindau, small little island in southern Germany, overlooking the Austrian Alps beyond the lake’s edge. “You’re lucky,” the receptionist told me as I checked into the Judenheberge (youth hostel) a few kilometres in on the mainland. “It’s been raining here for days.” I decided to spare her my laundry list of all the place I’ve been rained out in over the past nearly three weeks, and instead just smiled as she handed me the key. I didn’t want to waste a precious moment before making it back to the island where I had arrived by train less than an hour ago.

I took the public bus back to the water’s edge, smashed inside a sardine can on wheels among thirty-plus high schoolers just finishing their school day. Sometimes it’s so entertaining just being a single woman traipsing all over the place. I couldn’t count on two hands the number of googly-eyed looks I got form 14- and 15-year-olds, who probably had no idea they were grinning stupidly at a woman nearly twice their age. I must hide it well, I chuckled to myself, as I slid the volume on my iPod a notch higher and restrained myself from rocking out loud to the Sugarland tune buzzing in my ears.

And here I am. On the dock. Gentle breeze. Enjoying the last bite of my toffee- crunch Romanian- made chocolate bar. A few weeks ago, in Amsterdam, I swore off chocolate indefinitely after an obscene overdose on Belgian truffles, RitterSport squares, and Milka bars. I talked myself down to a month chocolate-free, and managed to make it all of six days before buying a bag of candies which, as luck would have it, were candy-covered chocolates. It was at this moment that I realized I was depriving myself of the fruits of the chocolate kingdom of the world (sorry, Hershey, you’re out of your league here).

I remem- bered back to Morocco, when I bought a chocolate bar off an eight-year- old entrepreneur selling snack food to those of us fortunate enough to be stranded on the bus for an hour as we docked between Chefchaouen and Tangier in some scrubby little transit town. The dry, diluted disaster wrapped up like a candy bar was an utter disappointment, but the closest thing to chocolate I had had since leaving home. And so, I’ve made a new pact with myself – I am allowed a bar of chocolate a day, for as long as the quality justifies the calories. Granted, I may need a new wardrobe by the time I reach the boundaries of the chocolate kingdom, given the fact that, as of today’s indulgence, I am guaranteed good chocolate as far out as Romania. But I have a feeling I’m going to enjoy the process.

~Melanie