By Maya Minwary
Staff Correspondent
LONDON—There are a couple of things that confound me, like how many licks it takes to get to the center of a Tootsie Roll pop, why Michael Jackson feels the need to nickname his new son “Blanket” and how chocolate can make everything feel better, even a disaster — for me anyway.
Two weeks ago it started snowing in London. I was rather delighted by the glittery snowflakes falling on my head and covering the ground. It was like a second Christmas. To top it off, I was leaving for Ireland that night and it was going to be my first weekend out of London.
The day couldn’t have been more perfect.
Our taxis came on time and Jen Perryman, Marie Simpson, Kristine Park, Jessica Blackstock, Crystal Gainer, Katie Buehner, Elizabeth Unruh and I took off. Soon the reality of my rare and great weather experience slapped me in the face. It wasn’t too long before we hit bumper-to-bumper traffic. Our hour-and-a-half ride to Stansted Airport turned out to be a two-and-a-half hour ordeal.
OK, granted that I’m a total Southern California girl who has experienced snow falling only about three times now, but it still amazes me how something so simple and wonderful like snow can turn things upside down.
Our group broke up into two taxis. Four of them made it to Stansted Airport just in the nick of time to catch their plane. The rest of us, however, missed our plane by 10 minutes and I was separated from the rest of my friends who were going to do the same Ireland tour with me.
“Great,” I sarcastically thought.
After I had paid an extra $80 to book another flight, the whole airport was shut down. It started snowing so hard at Stansted that officials decided it wasn’t safe enough for planes to take off or land that evening. Pandemonium swept the entire airport.
Maybe that’s a bit of an exaggeration, but thousands of people were herded off of the airport terminal and told to leave Stansted ASAP. Some couldn’t even find a place to stay that night because many of the hotels near Stansted were already booked. Luckily, the express train was still opened and we went back to the Pepperdine house.
That wasn’t even the worst part.
My friends who were scheduled to leave the next morning at the same airport had an even nastier experience. Their flight scheduled online had stated that all their flights were on schedule. So after taking off at 4:30 a.m., they couldn’t even make it to Stansted until six hours later. When they finally arrived, their flights were all canceled too.
Meanwhile, those of us who couldn’t fly to Dublin the night before were on the phones for hours trying to get our flight and tour money refunded. We finally got our flight money refunded, but not our tour money.
All this would make some people break down and cry. Maybe I would’ve too, if I hadn’t gone to Cadbury World. Since my friends and I couldn’t get out of the UK, we decided that were going to make the most of our weekend by experiencing the magical world of chocolate.
Imagine Willy Wonka’s factory transplanted into a small, quaint town in Bournville, England.
Inside, you walk through a manmade forest depicting the origins of the coco beans during the time of the Aztec when king Montezuma consumed chocolate as a drink.
As you’re learning all these fascinating facts about Cadbury chocolates, they hand you free candy bars. Then you make your way to a kiddie ride called “Cadabra.” It’s reminiscent of the “Small World” ride at Disneyland.
They let you taste gooey and warm liquid chocolate during the next part of your journey at Cadbury World, and to top it off, you get to make your own fresh chocolate caramel candy—mmmm. Before leaving Cadbury World I couldn’t help but buy £18 (that’s about $30) worth of chocolate candies.
Now that made me happy even though my previous two days had been chaotic. Ah, the wonders of chocolate, although, too bad I didn’t find a golden wrapper so I can own the company like Charlie in “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.”
February 13, 2003
