<p>I had such a long chat with D this morning, that I had to say I needed to hang up.
I don’t know if I have *ever *talked to her for so long at a time.
It was really sweet.
I would have talked longer, but I was using my cell phone and not a phone card :o, and she is still in India.</p>
<p>She has met a few Americans, they all seem to be from northern CA up to Washington State, which she found very interesting. But most of the other volunteers are European- and she is going to be traveling with them after her project is complete.</p>
<p>( Since that wasn’t part of original plan, I am making a list of things I need to have happen for my comfort level. She is ending the orphanage project early, because while she really enjoys the kids & she has experience, she feels like she is in the way)</p>
<p>But I have a problem. She wants me to send some chocolate for the family she had been staying with. That was their special request- but while we have lots of chocolate in Seattle-I’d like to send it in a way that it has the best chance to staying intact ( not melting). She asked for chocolate bars, but should I go against my better instincts and get those with * less* butterfat?</p>
<p>I bet some of the big chocolate makers have stores in the bigger cities in India. Perhaps you could order from here and have D pick it up or have it delivered to where she is?</p>
<p>I’d go into or call one of the local shops (Dilettante and Frans come to mind) and ask them what they recommend. I don’t know if I’d trust what UPS has to say. Shipping chocolate is a major pain (back in my mid twenties I used to manage a Canadian chocolate shop called Purdy’s).</p>
<p>Speaking as a chocolatier, do NOT rely on anything UPS tells you. If you want to ship chocolate to India, it needs to go in a styrofoam shipping carton inside a regular shipping carton that fits it. You will need to put frozen gel packs inside the styrofoam with the chocolate. Your goal is to keep the interior of the carton under 85F by the end of the trip. How many gel packs you will need depends on how long it will take to get there. The longer the trip, the more gel packs. There is actually online info that tells you how many are required, but it is mostly aimed at keeping something frozen, and of course chocolate normally cannot be frozen. I recently learned, though that truffles can apparently be frozen and thawed without negative effects as long as they are packed in an airtight freezer bag from which all of the air has been extracted and thawed in the same bag. I haven’t done it myself, though.</p>
<p>This is a big help- thanks for the link veryhappy-</p>
<p>Another thing D wanted was a tshirt from the new Seattle Sounders team. She has tickets for the game that starts four hours after she gets to Seattle in June, and one of the players who is from Sweden, has the same last name ( except not Americanized) so she thinks that is a great sign.</p>
<p>But she didn’t tell me he modeled underwear!</p>