Tasting the world's most delicious drink was not even the best part of my day

So, there's this artisan chocolatier festival going on in in Piazza Santa Croce, so my cohorts and I took a break from studying the poets of the novecento to check it out.

And that's when my sense of taste fulfilled its destiny.

I had a cup of hot chocolate, but let me tell you now, ciocolato caldo is not chocolate flavored water (although, I really do like Stephen's mint truffle water flavoring). It is like drinking a cup of warm melted chocolate. I had a cup of a hot white chocolate (even though I'm a little bit anal about the term white chocolate. There is no cocoa in white chocolate and therefore it cannot be classified as chocolate; it's just a bar of hardened and flavored sugar that melts deliciously in your mouth.) This ambrosial drink was not just artisan white chocolate (I cringe at the terminology, again), it was enhanced with traces of ginger, cinnamon and (wait for it...) pepperoncino (basically, the little dried red pepper flakes that some people--like me--enjoy putting on pizza). Oh, and it was topped off with a hearty helping of panna, a.k.a. wonderfully creamy whipped cream.

But, get this, that wasn't the best part of my day.

So I volunteer at a sort of women's shelter operated by the diocese of Florence. I usually keep an eye on the kids while the moms are at work or about their daily tasks. Sometimes I help cook lunch or tidy up, but usually I'm with the kids. I love kids, and I usually have a fairly decent relationship with youngsters, but I don't always make fast friends of them. Sometimes I over think kid-dom. I don't want to talk to them in baby talk and offend their intellect (I hated being treated like a baby when I was a kid. Around the age of 10 or so, I would seethe inside when I was handed a kid's menu at a restuarant), but I don't want to engage in a discussion about the principles of nihilism, which would probably be over their heads, and a little heavy. Plus here, I can't always say all the things I want to say to then because I am mutilating the language of the fine country of Italy.

But anyway, today I spent most of my time playing with Michele and Sunray, and when you get into playtime, you forget all your worries about how to interact with little ones. But playing with Michele and Sunray meant I spent considerable time attempting to discipline. Here's some vocab:

Fermatevi!................Stop it you guys!
Basta!.......................Enough!
Cosa stai facendo?!..What are you doing?
Non buttare!.............Don't throw [things]!
Non mordere!...........Don't bite!

Yeah, you get the gist. But so it is with 3-year-old boys. But anyway, the good part--the best part of my day-- is that as I was leaving, they said "Vieni" (Come here) and insisted on giving me kisses good-bye, the good ol wet ones that little kids give leaving a residue of saliva on your cheek.

It was just really sweet.