i have a secret to tell you...

the door to heaven.

so a little birdy (teal) told me that there is this little ditty called the secret bakery here in florence. or rather, a whole bunch. these bakeries start baking around midnight to supply the local bakeries with fresh deliciousness early in the morning. the exact location of the particular bakery that we know about will be taken with me to the grave. it is a glimmer of happiness in our nightlife that we have experienced successfully only twice.

the first time we found it (after walking around in circles FOREVER) it was about 3am and we were walking home from the bars. on a friday night, the streets here in florence are blanketed with people and if you can imagine, it is very loud. upon arrival to the mystical croissant baby maker, we found a very wet, very unhappy girl (she looked like a wet dog). we were told that the group that she was in was so loud and belligerent that the baker opened the door and dumped freezing water on her. mind you, this was when italy was on red alert for cold weather. because of this, the baker refused to open the door for the rest of the night. after this incident, we tried a couple more times unsuccessfully. we pouted incessantly for about a week about this unfortunate situation.

one night we were grumpy and tired from homework because we started to realize that these crazy italian professors actually expected us to do work while living in florence (a crazy notion, right?) christine suggests a final trip to the veiled chocolate-making miracle. so we bundle up over our pj's and make our way there. the ending to this story: SUCCESS. after stumbling on italian with the secret baker man to ask for twelve croissants (yes, count em, twelve) we finally had warm chocolate bakery in our mouths. hallelujah. you might actually hear the hallelujah when you see this picture-

imagine this picture being taken in complete silence 

because if we made a sound, 

the baker wouldnt bring out our croissants. 

the fact that we were silent while dancing and jumping

makes the picture even funnier.