One of my friends and I sometimes play the “where would you be” game.  So if  I could be in any place/time right now, I would pick this spot:

I would live above that shop, and I would spend the morning walking around town, maybe picking up some ingredients for dinner.  There would be hot chocolate and a wingback chair near the window for reading/napping purposes.  In the game, it would naturally be a Saturday morning.  It might even be a Saturday morning before a long weekend.

That’s the nice thing about dreamland.  You can make up fake long weekends and pretend that there’s snow on the ground when it was something like 97 degrees the day before.  Since I’m being really unrealistic, I want a specific cup of hot chocolate, too.

My roommate and I used to go to a coffee shop called Vanini during study abroad.  We went to Little Vanini because Big Vanini several blocks away was more touristy.  Ours only held four tables for two, and it had one display of beautiful chocolates.

At Little Vanini, you could order something called “cioccolata densa.”  When Swiss/Italian folks describe a drink as dense chocolate, they mean business.  The first time we ordered the cioccolata densa, we expected a darker version of American hot chocolate.  But no.  This stuff was heaven in a cup.  It was like chocolate pudding mixed with semi-sweet Swiss chocolate mixed with fairy dust.  You literally had to use a spoon to get it from the cup to your mouth.  And this freakish amount of praise for hot chocolate is coming from someone who usually prefers marshmallows to the actual drink they go into.

Now that you’re well on your way to a sugar coma just by reading this post, I’ll let you imagine your own perfect spot.  This moment of imaginary vacation was sponsored by the super strength air-conditioning at my library that  makes it feel like perpetual winter.