Chocolate

It’s a little late in the day for breakfast isn’t it?

10:30am, you’re all laid back in your comfortable seat, with your comfortable sweater, toast and olive oil, shooting the breeze for an hour like you don’t have anything better to do. (Or is this what is the better?) Do you have anything better to do than smell the bread in this bakery? Doesn’t it smell heavenly? Of course you want to stay for two hours.

2 women…1 man…2 women…1 Couple…2 women…1 man

What do you think? You think you can just take a mid morning break and enjoy life for two hours before going to work? Not back to work, but to work.

Are you having cake for breakfast? And is that a caña?

 

Cruasán Frances – €1,50  | Croissant de Chocolate – €1,75 | Caracola Francesa – €1,75 | Napolitana, €1,50

I can’t tell what they’re talking about, but the soft murmur of the chatter is soothing and harmonious.

It’s warm in here, filled with baked goods and chocolate. It’s a safe little haven on this cold, gray day.

It’s also very brown. There is a lot of brown. But it’s a welcoming and friendly brown. There are a million shades of brown, baked and molded into the hordes of bread loaves on the shelves of all different variety: Tornillo, Pan Antiguo, Chapata, Fuello, Pan Miga, Pan Alemán, etc.

The colors of the carrot cake aesthetically complement the white shirt and brown apron worn by the waiters. The white cream cheese frosting gleams over the savory light brown inside.

The fragrant and excited coffee is also brown. There are so many shades: dark, light, amber, beige, cinnamon, cocoa, bronze and Beyoncé Brown (which will probably have its own Crayola crayon soon).

Chocolate sprinkles have snowed across the tops of croissants and there is a light red-brown dusting of cinnamon over frothy cappuccinos.

This experience with brown is actually quite a nice, unexpected, and pleasant change in my daily experience with the muddy color, which consists of dodging the dog poop smeared all over the sidewalks.

Anyways, I digress.

Do these people work? Are they taking a very early break? Do they work at night? Considering the age difference, they can’t all be students.  Perhaps their jobs start at 11am?  Or, perhaps whenever they like going in….How does it take an hour to finish a coffee 3 inches tall?

Have you ever gone into work at 11am, after having enjoyed a pleasant conversation with your colleague or friend, after having eaten a chocolate croissant, maybe even sipped a little beer, for breakfast? What would your day be like if that’s how you started it? Would you dare?