Day 4 - Chocolate Wasted

Another early morning, and we were up and ready to go!  The kids met at 8:00am at the HIB center, ready to go to the Zotter Chocolate Factorz outside of Graz.  Zotter Chocolate is eco friendly and fair trade.  To start off the tour, everyone watched a short documentary about the history of the company and about one of Zotter's trips to Beliz to buy fair trade organic cacao.  It was really fascinating to learn about the history of the chocolate company.

Next came the fun part of eating all the chocolate!  The kids were thrilled to be sampling dozens of varieties from cacao beans from all over South America, India, and Africa.  During the tour, they tasted all the stages the cacao beans go through before it becomes the delicious chocolate that is all wrapped and sold!  Especially popular was the drinking chocolate station, where kids chose their chocolate flavor of choice, and melt it in some warm milk.  There was so much chocolate being eaten!  

After visiting the actual factory, we went behind the building where there was an animal garden, (petting zoo).  A bunch of the kids got to meet some friendly goats, pigs, sheep and even a huge yak.  They had fun going down the slide and just spending time being kids, petting animals, and running off all the chocolate they had just consumed.  

We loaded the bus and headed back to HIB where we were greeted and picked up by homestays.  Many went off to have a BBQ with a number of the hometays.  Others went off to go shopping and sight seeing.  Just a great way to spend their last night with their Austrian families before we will see them again, soon, in San Francisco!

Click through the slideshow below to view some highlights from today: